[Namron] Booze is good!

[muriel at entelesoft.com]

This just in from Medscape Medical News:


Beer, Wine May Increase Bone Density

Peggy Peck

Oct. 5, 2004 (Seattle) — An analysis of data from the Framingham Offspring
Study suggests that men can improve bone mineral density (BMD) with moderate
consumption of beer, while women gain a similar benefit from moderate
consumption of wine.

The findings were reported during a poster session at the 26th annual
meeting of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR) by
Katherine Tucker, PhD, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the USDA
Human Nutrition Research Center at Tufts University in Boston,
Massachusetts.

Dr. Tucker told Medscape that the findings from the study of 1,631 women and
1,295 men suggest that "beer and wine really do have some nutritional
value." She theorized that beer may benefit bones because it contains
silicon, which has been shown to promote bone health. Wine, on the other
hand, is rich in phytochemicals, which also may benefit bones.

In the study, men who consumed one to two cans of beer per day increased BMD
measured at the hip trochanter by as much as 7%; in women, one to two
glasses of wine per day increased hip BMD by up to 5%, Dr. Tucker said.

Asked if the beer-wine findings suggest some essential difference between
the sexes, Dr. Tucker said, "This is more a case of numbers. In this group
of people we didn't have enough men who were wine drinkers or women who were
beer drinkers to determine if men and women could benefit from either
drink." But she said that it is possible that two glasses of wine could
benefit men, while women might benefit from one to two cans of beer daily.

The important message, she said, is "moderation because while two cans of
beer or two 6 ounce glasses of wine are good for bones, drinking more is
harmful." In fact, she said that when distilled beverages are considered,
"daily consumption of more than two drinks promotes osteoporosis."

In the study, the investigators used questionnaires to assess daily intake
of beer, wine, and other alcoholic beverages. In addition, BMD was measured
at the spine and hip using a Lunar DPX-L. After adjusting for other factors
that influence bone health, including age, body mass index, physical
activity, smoking, calcium and/or vitamin D supplements, menopause status,
and estrogen use, "there was a linear relationship between BMD and
consumption of wine or beer."

Dr. Tucker noted that moderate drinking — especially of red wine — has
already been linked to heart health. "I think that what we are now finding
out is that there is not a diet that is good for the heart and another that
is good for bones," she said. "Good nutrition is good nutrition, so what is
good for the heart is good for the bones." Other studies have suggested that
nutrition also plays a role in brain health, she said.

But while Dr. Tucker's poster attracted crowds of ASBMR members, not all
bone experts were convinced that beer and wine build strong bones. Roger
Zebaze, MD, a research fellow at the University of Melbourne in Australia,
told Medscape that "better BMD doesn't always mean fewer fractures. Bone
health is really dependent on the fracture risk."

Dr. Zebaze, who was not involved in the study, said a more clinically
significant study would be one that measures the number of fractures in
drinkers. Dr. Tucker said that while there are fracture data on the original
Framingham cohort, such data are not yet available for the offspring study.

Jane Cauley, DrPH, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh in
Pennsylvania, told Medscape that the findings are interesting but not
terribly surprising. Moreover, she said the results may be biased because
moderate drinkers are also likely to "have other good habits. They are
likely to be healthier in general. This was what we saw in the early studies
of estrogen, which appeared to benefit bones and heart, but the heart
benefit disappeared when estrogen was tested in a prospective study." At any
rate, Dr. Cauley, who was not involved in the study, said the "benefit shown
is very modest."

ASBMR 26th Annual Meeting: Abstract SA330. Presented Oct. 2, 2004.

Reviewed by Gary D. Vogin, MD
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/490673?src=mp

There are, indeed, two things, knowledge and opinion, of which the one makes
its possessor really to know, the other to be ignorant.
Hippocrates