A glass of booze per day was good for the heart!

[RainbowConfusion]

I used to hear this a good deal in the past, and my dad, who had angina was advised to enjoy the odd tipple of whiskey after his diagnosis - he didn't take it up and lived to a good old age.

Was there ever any actual science behind this?
Many claims that red wine had health giving effects were later debunked.

And whilst I would imagine that a small amount of alcohol could definitely reduce some stress, I am not so sure if it would contribute to the extent of actually lengthening one's life......alcohol does increase blood pressure and cortisol, so presumably any relaxation benefit is cancelled out by the work the body has to do to eliminate the toxin.
Alcohol is also thought to contribute to the formation of arterial plaques, but this might be if used in excess.

People often declare that their grandmother drank port every night and lived to be a healthy 110 year old, but how prevalent is this, in reality?

Current advice states that no amount of alcohol is beneficial, so I presume cardiologists like my father's are now rare?

I don't drink much myself, and haven't been diagnosed with a heart condition so far (touch wood!), but I am interested in health and fitness, and would love to know if there is any truth to the above at all.

Please note, I am not interested in whether alcohol is good or bad, just the science/evidence that it is good for the heart.

Im getting on a bit and I certainly remember it was common for Doctors to recommend- generally women in my experience - a glass of stout every day " to build them up." And one of the old well known advertising slogans was " A guiness a day keeps the Doctor away"

My mother was advised by the Doctor to drink Sanatogen tonic wine to " help her nerves" .

And I've heard of the examples you give in your post OP about port and whiskey and red wine.

So traditionally alcohol and perceived health benefits is a long established belief.

But I agree with you that the modern understanding of the negative effects of alcohol on the body are much truer than the old ideas on the subject.

My grandad was told to drink a whisky every day by his doctor to help with his circulation

That reminds me, my mum was advised to drink Guinness after blood loss (miscarriage) to replace iron. She wasn't fond of organ meat.

I am sure we all remember doctor's advising women to smoke, too. I recall an old 'play for today' (BBC) where a doctor visited a depressed female patient who was newly pregnant. He sat on her bed smoking and pressed her to take it up for the baby's sake!

Fun times.

Back to the booze though. Most sources stress the negative impacts now. And whilst a lot of people use the Mediterranean culture's moderate wine use as 'evidence' to support health benefits, I doubt those traditional rituals involved drinking 13% mass produced wine in enormous glasses as a reason to reward themselves for putting the kids to bed

Think it was used to thin the blood too, now replaced by an aspirin.
I think controversially that we over medicate old people and keep them alive when there is no quality to their life.
Id happily take a brandy a day and die at 80 instead of wasting away.

I am sure we all remember doctor's advising women to smoke, too. I recall an old 'play for today' (BBC) where a doctor visited a depressed female patient who was newly pregnant. He sat on her bed smoking and pressed her to take it up for the baby's sake!

Yes my mother used to talk about when she was in the Women's Royal Army Corps during the war they were all encouraged to smoke " to help the war effort " - presumably the tax on the cigarettes did. Amazing to think of this now.

I once read (and this really might be absolutely bollocks) that the red wine being good for you stuff was poorly controlled in the studies. And the benefits came from other factors eg red wine drinkers tend to be more middle class, and therefore tend to be healthier anyway, have access to healthcare (American studies), better diets overall.

I can’t remember where I read that, so like I said, might be complete nonsense.

If you look at alcohol intake and risk of premature death, it's a J-shaped curve, ie non-drinkers actually have a higher risk of early death than moderate drinkers. This was taken to mean that small amounts of alcohol have a protective effect, hence the advice that moderate drinking might be good for you.

More recently, it was noticed that many of the non-drinkers were not drinking in the last years of their life because they were already in poor health. Their abstinence was correlated with their poor health, rather than being a cause of it. Therefore, the advice that a little alcohol was beneficial to health was withdrawn.

That said, I do still drink about three units per week, becuase I enjoy it.

@BadWoIf

Oh that is really interesting.

I've had quite a difficult relationship with alcohol most of my adult life and have had quite a few periods of total abstinence over the years.

I've recently started drinking again - albeit at a low level - after a couple of dry years.

My enjoyment of any alcohol I consume is always spoilt by my constant worry about what it's doing to my body.

Funny thing about social class now is that the old assumptions don't work in quite the same way.
The average working class family are homeowners in work, running two vehicles, with more access to information and health studies, and are often financially better off than many in the struggling middle (hello!). And of course, they love their wine!

It's kind of universal now, I suppose.

It is possibly becoming less simple to predict - I have known quite a few high earning alcoholics, highly functional yet consuming an absolute shit ton of the old grape. One doesn't think he has an issue because his life is so otherwise ...tidy.

Dad was told by his cardiologist that the socialisation is important not necessarily the drink. Alcohol / mint tea / chai / coffee is all good for the heart in moderation if in fun company