Active Low-Carber Forums - View Single Post - Observational studies on red wine were wrong

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/17/...&smid=url-share

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The possibility that a glass or two of red wine could benefit the heart was “a lovely idea” that researchers “embraced,” Dr. Stockwell said. It fit in with the larger body of evidence in the 1990s that linked alcohol to good health.

In one 1997 study that tracked 490,000 adults in the United States for nine years, for example, researchers found that those who reported having at least one alcoholic drink per day were 30 to 40 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease than those who didn’t drink. They were also about 20 percent less likely to die from any cause.

By the year 2000, hundreds of studies had reached similar conclusions, Dr. Stockwell said. “I thought the science was in,” he said.

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The studies were further researched to account for biases and found different results.

Since then, many more studies, including one Dr. Stockwell and his colleagues published in 2023, have confirmed that alcohol is not the health drink it was once believed to be.

In 2022, researchers reported graver news: Not only was there no cardiovascular benefit to drinking alcohol, it could even increase the risk of heart issues, said Dr. Leslie Cho, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic.

Today, more and more research shows that even one drink per day can increase your chances of developing conditions like high blood pressure and an irregular heart rhythm, both of which can lead to stroke, heart failure or other health consequences, she said.

For decades, red wine was touted as healthy based on biased observational studies. Based only on observational studies, red meat has been blamed for health problems for even longer. Red meat is still considered unhealthy by most of the medical community.