Alcohol May Be More of a Problem for Seniors

I'm not much of a drinker, although I occasionally enjoy a nice glass of wine with dinner, a cold craft beer, or an Irish coffee as dessert. Alcohol is expensive, so I have put it in that "luxury" category of purchases that I don't make often because they just aren't high on my priority list. I do know retired folks who seem to spend an awful lot of their retirement cash on booze, and to me that seems like a waste.

But it looks like there may be another reason to go easy on the alcohol. Now, I often listen to the Wall Street Journal Report on the radio in the morning... it's a morning news summary I find very interesting. And not long ago I was surprised to hear them mention a study showing that even a large glass of wine increased the risk of stroke by a third in older folks. With a little Googling I found an article from the Telegraph that gave more information.

This appears to have been a substantial (over 5,500 sets of twins), long term (43 years) study that was published in the medical journal Stroke. Big studies like this, especially those that use genetically identical twins, tend to be more reliable than all the very small studies we read about most often. Still, until a specific causal relationship and mechanism has been established by further research, results from associations discovered in even big studies like this should be considered tentative.

This latest study focused on subjects in their 50's and 60's who regularly consumed two units (drink equivalents) of an alcoholic beverage per day, for example a large glass of wine or a pint of beer. Their stroke risk averaged 34% higher than those who did not drink. The fact that the effect was present even in these identical twins means it was not related to genetic but to lifestyle issues. In this case, probably the alcohol consumption.

I know I've seen other studies showing a benefit from modest alcohol consumption, and this article mentions one in which middle aged male teetotalers had a higher risk of heart failure than those who regularly drank small amounts of alcohol. The conclusion here is that while a little alcohol is probably not harmful and may even have some benefit, larger quantities consumed regularly, even to the tune of two drinks a day, can impair your health. In this case, raise your risk of stroke significantly.

I guess I'll continue to be mostly abstemious. It appears to be healthier and it's definitely more frugal, too.