Levels of good cholesterol decline with age, but study results recently presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association suggest that a pint of beer a day will slow that decline and help ward off heart disease and prevent strokes.
Researcher Shue Huang of Pennsylvania State University tracked the drinking habits and HDL (good cholesterol) levels of 80,000 Chinese adults over six years and found that those who consumed one to two servings of alcohol daily had the slowest decline in HDL, with beer drinkers fairing best.
There weren’t enough wine drinkers in the study to allow for any conclusions about the consumption of the grape, and researchers will need to conduct more studies to determine whether the same results apply within other populations.
Meanwhile, if you’re planning to raise a glass to toast these results, keep it to a pint: too much beer negated the effect, and there’s plenty of research showing that drinking too much is very, very bad for you.
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