TUESDAY, Sept. 3, 2002 (HealthDayNews) -- Scientists in France have found that middle-aged men who drink modest amounts of wine regularly after a heart attack are less likely to suffer a second heart attack or other cardiovascular complications.
The findings, which appear in today's online issue of Circulation, corroborate previous research, with a couple of new twists.
"It's really more of the same," says Dr. Terrence Sacchi, chief of the division of cardiology at Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y. "It's interesting, but it doesn't really add anything. I don't think any cardiologist is going to say this is what you need to do."
Certainly previous studies have had similar findings, but few have looked at the role of wine in secondary prevention, claims lead author Dr. Michel de Lorgeril, of the Cardiovascular Stress and Associated Pathology Laboratory at Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble, France.
Also in contrast with most previous research, the men in the study were drinking almost exclusively wine and the population was very homogenous, meaning the researchers could control for a good many other complicating factors.
De Lorgeril and his team looked at data on 353 French men between the ages of 40 and 60 who were participating in the Lyon Diet Heart Study. All of the men involved had similar lifestyles and backgrounds, so the effect of the wine was easier to discern.
"We were able to control for the main confounding factors," de Lorgeril says. "In the U.S., people who drink wine are different from people who drink other alcoholic beverages. For instance, wine drinkers have higher education levels, they smoke less, they have different dietary habits and, in consequence, it is difficult to make the difference between effect of lifestyle in general and the effect of the drink."
During a mean follow-up of four years, the study participants experienced a total of 104 cardiovascular complications (including another heart attack, stroke and heart failure). The majority of these complications occurred in men who drank no alcohol (36) or who drank fewer than two four-ounce glasses of wine a day (34). Those who drank more wine had significantly fewer problems. There were 18 complications among those who drank about two glasses a day, and 16 among men who drank an average of four to five glasses of wine a day.
Men who consumed two or more glasses of wine a day reduced their risk for a recurrent heart attack by more than 50 percent, compared with non-drinkers.
Herein lies a huge paradox. The inverse relationship between wine and cardiovascular complications was independent of the major risk factors for cardiovascular disease, including smoking, cholesterol and blood pressure, among others.
In other words, drinking alcohol raises blood pressure and other predictors of heart disease, but doesn't lead to a heart attack. "Drinkers are protected," de Lorgeril says. "There is something very, very strange in the relationship between coronary heart disease and alcohol."
Why this might be the case is still the subject of much research. "We can say there is a secret of wine, but what is the secret? We are working to discover the biological mechanisms by which wine and alcohol in general are protective," de Lorgeril says. Although he and his colleagues have "some important data," the doctor is not willing to reveal his secrets just yet.
Meanwhile, de Lorgeril and others are quick to caution that the message here is not to start drinking or to increase your alcohol intake, especially if your profile does not match that of the study participants.
For healthy people, the American Heart Association recommends that if you do drink, do so in moderation -- that means two drinks a day for men and one drink for women. If you don't drink, this is not a reason to start.
"You have to be very careful of this because of the physiological and psychological effects of alcohol," Sacchi warns. "The study is limited. In no way is it definitive."
What To Do
For more information on alcohol, wine and cardiovascular disease, check out the American Heart Association.
BBC News has more on how red wine works its magic.
