#  To Your Health 

 





February 03, 2006

 

 

**Sebastian Bauhoff**

A common excuse for wine lovers is that "a few glasses of wine are good for the heart". Well maybe for warming your heart but possibly not for preventing heart attacks.

A recent note in The Lancet (Vol 366, December 3, 2005, pages 1911-1912) suggests that earlier reports that light to moderate alcohol consumption can lower the risk of ischaemic heart disease were severely affected by confounders in non-randomized trials.

Some people believed that the early results were due to misclassification of former drinkers with cardio-vascular diseases ("CVD") as never-drinkers. This raised the CVD rate among the non-drinkers group. Another possible story is that the studies didn't properly control for confounders -- apparently some risk factors for CVD are more prevalent among non-drinkers, and the non-randmized studies didn't control well enough for those. But as the note points out, confounding could bias results both in favor or against a protective effect. Heavy drinking offers really good protection but those people don't live healtily lifes, and the health benefits would be obscured.

But don't fear, the [British Heart Foundation](http://edition.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/diet.fitness/12/02/wine.lancet/) says that low to moderate alcohol consumption probably doesn't do your heart any harm. For protection against CVD you should really quit smoking, do sports, and eat a balanced diet. Not quite as appealing as a good glass of wine, of course.

In any case, food for thought and a great 2-page piece for your next causal inference class. Cheers to that.

Posted by [Sebastian Bauhoff](http://www.iq.harvard.edu/blog/sss/archives/author/sebastian-bauhoff/) at February 3, 2006 6:00 AM



 

 

 



 

 

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