America now has a new set of recommendations for heart health– the first since 2017– courtesy of the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology.
Alcohol features prominently.
That’s likely the result of a number of studies over the past few decades that strongly suggest alcohol is far more damaging to our health, and at much lower levels of consumption, than previously believed.
Of course, nobody expects 100% of American drinkers to give up booze, so the experts offer the usual compromise: they recommend “…for those who choose to drink, consuming no more than two drinks per day for men and no more than one drink per day for women.”
Still, I keep running into people who insist that “according to science”, two glasses of red wine a day is actually good for your heart.
It is not. And stop saying that. But don’t take my word for it.
Here’s a link to an explanation by a practicing cardiologist.
Why has this belief been so persistent? I’m sure it’s partly because of certain long ago articles in the popular media.
There was a time when people would deliberately rearrange their daily routine to include two glasses of red wine nightly, in the belief that it acted as a kind of recipe for a healthy heart.
“I’m not a big fan of wine,”one explained to me. “Still, I know it’s good for me.”
What’s behind this confusion? The author explains: “… the problem with red wine is reverse causation. Basically, it’s not the people who drink zero alcohol who get sick; it’s that people who are sick tend to give up alcohol.”
As for the research that led to this mistaken belief, the author goes on to conclude that it results from a kind of statistical illusion. He claims that once we “…get rid of a lot of the statistical confounding, you see that the risk to alcohol is very linear. The more you drink, the worse you are.”
“I’m not saying you can’t drink alcohol,” he adds, helpfully. “But you can’t think it’s good for your heart.”
