2024-12-17 23:10:00
A team of Spanish researchers just published a study claiming that ““moderate wine consumption” From up to 35 drinks per month It is beneficial for cardiovascular health and “may also help reduce the risk of heart problems” in the long term. The work, published Wednesday in the journal ‘European Heart Journal’, has infuriated the scientific community since, according to several experts reported to the Science Media Center platform, “the results of the study are distorted” and, above all, “andThe work was paid for by the alcohol producers themselves” and for “the wine industry”. The debate on this topic has polarized experts for years and now, once again, the publication of this study reopens a thorny discussion, full of nuances and which no one likes.
The work monitored the presence of a substance derived from grapes in the urine of over 1,200 patients, of whom more than half had suffered from heart problems.
The controversial research is published under the signature of a dozen experts from the University of Barcelona, the Hospital Clínic and the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS), among others. According to the article, the work focused on traces of tartic acidone of the components of grapes, in the urine of over 1,200 patients aged around 68, among whom at least 685 had suffered from cardiovascular problems and another 600 randomly selected. The results of this analysis indicate that the cmoderate consumption of wineequivalent to half a glass a day, it could reduce the risk of suffering from cardiovascular problems by up to 50%. Even if this benefit is only observed at this consumption threshold and not at higher doses, therefore, despite everything, it is confirmed that the Excessive consumption of this substance is highly harmful.
Conflicts of interest
The methodology of this work has been harshly criticized by the scientific community because, initially, it focuses only on monitoring an isolated indicator in an aging population which, in addition to wine, could be exposed to heart problems due to other causes. “It’s disappointing to see an investigation like this when it happens overwhelming evidence that any amount of alcohol increasedto the risk of many health complications, such as hypertension, heart failure, multiple tumors”, says Naveed Sattar, professor of Cardiometabolic Medicine at the University of Glasgow (United Kingdom). Along the same lines, according to the expert, in this study the analysis observational does not take into account the other vicissitudes as if the teetotal people They were precisely because of previous health problems or if they included former drinkers.
“It is disappointing to see such research when there is overwhelming evidence that any amount of alcohol increases the risk of many health complications.”
Another issue that independent experts focus on is conflict of interest on which this work is based. “Many authors of the article mention having received help from various organizations related to the alcoholic beverage production sector in the past, and organizations linked to the wine sector contributed to finance the study presented”, underlines Josep Maria Suelves, head of the Smoking and Accident Prevention and Control Service at the Public Health Agency of Catalonia. Regarding the results of this study, the expert states that “Alcohol consumption has numerous negative effects on health, including several forms of cancer, the magnitude of which exceeds any of the purported beneficial cardiovascular effects described to date.
Thorny debate
Julián Pérez Villacastín, head of the Cardiology Service of the San Carlos Clinical Hospital in Madrid and former president of the Spanish Society of Cardiology, also takes a strong position on this issue, who after having analyzed the results of this work states that “It cannot be concluded that alcohol is good for your health nor that alcohol reduces cardiovascular risk.” “I think this study provides scientific knowledge on the wine consumption relationship and cardiovascular health. This is very relevant, since many of the opinions expressed to society on this topic, unfortunately, tend to be influenced more by emotional aspects than by scientific evidence”, comments the expert who, like his colleagues, commented on this work in separate analyzes and comments submitted to the Science Media Center of Spain and the United Kingdom.
“It cannot be concluded that alcohol is good for health nor that alcohol reduces cardiovascular risk”
Even the authors of this work, for their part recognize technical difficulties study this type of issue since, for example, observational studies only allow us to establish the relationship or causality between two phenomena but not always to establish a correlation. That is, the investigation can confirm this In the group analyzed there was a lower incidence of heart problems among people who drink a glass of wine a day, despite this It cannot be directly stated that this factor alone benefits the heart.. In any case, scientists insist on the need to “conduct more studies” on moderate alcohol consumption and its effects on health. “Where there is no doubt is like the Excessive alcohol consumption represents a serious risk“the specialists add in a note.
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