The following is excerpted from an article citing a second study
questioning the health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption. It too
was published in the British Medical Journal. The article can be found in
its entirety at http://www.ias.org.uk/alert/99issue2/health.htm
Why are you four times more likely to suffer from ischaemic heart disease
in the United Kingdom than in France? Researchers tell us that the major
risk factors are no less present over the Channel than in these islands.
The higher consumption of alcohol in France has been identified as the
explanation of the "French Paradox" and red wine has been favourite in the
health stakes. For quite a few years the drink industry publicity machine
has made sure that everyone knows that a steady intake of Chateau Margaux,
as recommended by Dr Stuttaford of The Times, will keep heart disease at
bay. Large sums of money have been poured into research by the producers
of alcoholic drink. Recently the Scotch Whisky Association paid for a
study which indicated that the occasional dram could be as effective as
red wine in averting a stroke. There is no doubt that the medical research
carried out was done so in good faith and the results were certainly
plausible. It seemed that men of about 50 years of age were protected from
cardiovascular misfortune by a moderate consumption of red wine and
possibly a glass of Glenmorangie.
Health campaigners and those working in the field of alcohol policy were
justifiably alarmed that the message received by the public would be one
of encouragement to drink. Whatever caveats accompanied the assertions of
the researchers, it was argued, the idea would be implanted that drinking
was a healthy activity.
The picture may be changing, however, and important new research has cast
doubt on the protective effects of alcohol. Two studies recently published
in The British Medical Journal (BMJ) have opened up the whole question. In
the first, the red wine explanation of the French Paradox is shown to be
no longer an established fact. Professor Nicholas Wald and Malcolm Law, of
the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine at St Bartholemew's in
London, suggest that the disparity in the incidence of heart disease is
accounted for by their "time lag" hypothesis.
"We propose," say the authors "that the difference is due to the time lag
between increases in consumption of animal fat and serum cholesterol
concentrations and the resulting increase in mortality from heart disease
similar to the recognised time lag between smoking and lung cancer.
Consumption of animal fat and serum cholesterol concentrations increased
only recently in France but did so decades ago in Britain."
The hypothesis put forward by Dr Law and Professor Wald is based on the
fact that there has only been a similarity in the consumption of animal
fat and serum cholesterol in France and the United Kingdom for the last
fifteen years. "There must be a time lag between the increase in serum
cholesterol concentration and the full effect of the resulting increase in
coronary artery atheroma and risk of death from ischaemic heart disease."
It is true that in the higher wine consuming countries there is a lower
mortality rate from ischaemic heart disease. However, the countries where
there is a high level of wine drinking (France, Italy, and Spain, for
example) are those where saturated fat consumption was previously low but
now increased to levels comparable to places like the UK. "The low
mortality from ischaemic heart disease," say Law and Wald, "reflects the
earlier low levels of saturated fat consumption, for which wine is simply
an indirect marker or confounding factor."
Dr Law and Professor Wald further point out that not all French heart
disease deaths were classified as such which in itself could account for
about 20 per cent of the difference between Britain and France. In
addition, they say that all alcoholic drinks, not simply red wine, protect
against harm from cholesterol but that there was no evidence of this
making any great difference.
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