(Susanna Barrows told me the story once,
complete with photos, of a French study prior to the First World War which
compared the marching and fighting abilities of French poilus (infantry
soldiers) when their rations included wine vs. when their rations included
beer. Wine won, with a patriotic flourish in the study's reporting, as I
remember. The authors of that study would appreciate the one
below.
"Wine drinkers were less
likely to die violent deaths" is the giveaway line that there must be
uncontrolled social differences between the wine and beer drinkers in the study,
which could also be affecting the other findings. Robin)
Yahoo!/Reuters - Monday September 13, 1999
Wine Drinking Beats
Beer In French Health Study
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Drinking a few glasses of
wine a day proves to be more of a
life-saver than beer drinking, perhaps
because of cancer-fighting compounds in
wine, a study of more than 36,000
middle-aged Frenchmen said Sunday.
As previous studies have shown,
drinking one to three glasses of wine daily can
lower blood pressure and
cholesterol levels and lessen the chances of suffering
a heart
attack.
The French study showed moderate wine drinkers had a death rate
from heart
attacks that was between 45-48 percent lower than those who
abstained from
drinking. Red wine particularly contains antioxidants that may
help prevent
heart disease.
Beer drinkers were found to have a 42
percent lower rate of fatal heart attacks
than non-drinkers, but not as low
as the wine drinkers.
But the wine drinkers in the study also had a
significantly lower risk of dying
from all causes than either beer drinkers
or nondrinkers, when adjusted for
factors such as age and
smoking.
Wine drinkers were less likely to die violent deaths, or suffer
fatal bouts with
cancer or other diseases.
While drinking alcohol from
any source increases the risk of cancer, the
researchers said, substances
found in wine such as resvaratrol may more than
compensate by inhibiting
development of the disease.
The study found beer drinkers did not enjoy
the same protection from cancer as
wine drinkers. Drinking beer might even
have posed an increased risk of cancer
due to the presence of substances
called nitrosamines found in beers brewed
before 1990.
Most types of
beer have since been made with much lower levels of nitrosamines
but the
impact on cancer rates will not be known until the next decade,
the
researchers said.
They noted that excessive drinking has been
found to double the risk of cancer.
Drinkers were also more likely to smoke
than nondrinkers.
All 36,250 men in the study ranged in age from 40 to 60
when data collection
began between 1978 and 1983, and the researchers later
examined death
certificates.
They noted statistical comparisons could
have been skewed by the control group
of nondrinkers, some of whom might have
stopped drinking due to health problems
that could have ultimately hastened
their deaths.
As with other health studies involving alcohol, the
researchers were careful to
issue a cautionary note.
``Because of the
potential health hazards of any alcoholic beverage, our results
suggesting
that a few glasses of wine may have salutary effects should not
be
interpreted as an incentive to drink,'' wrote study authors Serge Renaud
and
Roger Salamon of the National Institute for Health and Medical Research
in
Bordeaux, and Gerard Siest and Rene Gueguen of the Center of Preventive
Medicine
in Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy.
``If you drink alcoholic beverages,
do so in moderation, with meals and when
consumption does not put you or
others at risk,'' they wrote.
The study appeared in the Archives of
Internal Medicine, a journal published by
the American Medical
Association.