Beer and wine increase risk of cardiovascular disease
The Italian scientists announced that the effects of beer and wine can lead to heart disease. They divided the effects into fatal and non-fatal. With the help of new statistical techniques they made meta-analysis on the connection between wine, beer consumption and cardiovascular results.
The results of 16 researches showed a J-shaped connection between wine consumption and decreased vascular risk, with maximal protection- 31% was observed at 21 g/day of alcohol. The same results for beer (maximal protection: 42% at 43 g/day of alcohol). The results of 12 researches showed that wine and beer consumption suggest maximal protection of 33% at 25 g/day of alcohol (2 drinks/day by US standards and 3 units for the UK) for heart diseases. The scientists could not find a statistically significant connection between alcohol consumption and heart disease.
The main problem of all meta-analyses is the inability to control the changes that were not in the original reports.
The most important result of this meta-analysis is an inverse connection between the alcohol consumption to heart condition. As a similar connection was not seen for alcohol consumption, the results do not permit the conclusion that the main effects on heart disease are due to the polyphenols in beer and wine. The scientists cannot concluded that the effect on heart disease is due to the alcohol in these drinks. The deficit of a similar J-shaped connection for alcohol may have been due to different drinking patterns (e.g., more binge drinking) as the pattern of drinking was not included as a confounder in the analyses.
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