NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Long-term light wine consumption — the equivalent of about half a glass a day — lowers the risk of death from any cause and extends life, new research shows.

Among a group of randomly selected Danish men whose cardiovascular health and life expectancy at age 50 were repeatedly monitored between 1960 and 2000 as part of the Zutphen Study, long-term light wine consumption was associated with an increase in life expectancy of nearly 5 years.

The finding is independent of total alcohol consumption, Dr. Martinette T. Streppel from Wageningen University, the Netherlands and colleagues report in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health released online April 30 ahead of print.

According to the report, during 40 years of monitoring, 1,130 of the 1,373 men in the study died. The average age at death was 77 years. Of these deaths, 628 were cardiovascular disease deaths, 348 were coronary heart disease deaths and 139 were cerebrovascular deaths.

Mirroring past studies, long-term light alcohol intake was significantly and inversely associated with mortality risk, the investigators report. Men who drank up to 20 grams of alcohol per day had a 57% lower cerebrovascular mortality risk, a 30% lower cardiovascular disease mortality risk and a 25% lower all-cause mortality risk, compared to men who did not drink alcohol.

Men with a long-term alcohol intake of up to 20 grams per day (on average 6 grams/day) had a 2.3 year longer life expectancy at age 50 compared with non-drinkers. For those men who consumed more than 20 grams of alcohol per day (on average 29 grams/day), life expectancy was 1.9 years longer compared with non-drinkers.

Independent of total alcohol intake, long-term wine consumption was highly protective against coronary heart disease, total cardiovascular and all-cause mortality; the hazard ratios were 0.61, 0.68, and 0.73, respectively.

The data also show that long-term intake of alcohol from wine, of 2 grams per day on average, increased life expectancy by 2.5 years at age 50 compared to drinkers of beer or spirits and 4.7 years compared to nondrinkers. In the present study, 70% of wine consumed was red wine.

The inverse association between wine intake and mortality remained in analyses adjusted for socioeconomic status, dietary and other lifestyle habits, and factors thought to influence the association between wine drinking and better health.

Reference:
J Epidemiol Community Health 2009.