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Alcohol might harm the elderly
I hate to bring bad news to seniors who’ve dreamed of retiring and drinking alcohol whenever they feel like it. For a long time we’ve heard that moderate alcohol intake is beneficial to the heart, but recent research suggests this is not entirely true. It all depends on what a person calls moderate drinking. Most people who drink don’t fit within the moderate drinking category that’s established by the researchers. Moderate drinking for men is like a couple of beers, and for a woman it’s comparable to the alcohol content of one beer. It’s the alcohol content that matters, not whether it’s a beer, liquor or wine. This is from Science Daily:
Drinking two or more alcoholic beverages daily may damage the heart of elderly people, according to research in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging. The study correlated weekly alcohol consumption among 4,466 people — average age 76 — to the size, structure and motion of various parts of the heart.
Researchers found:
- The more people drank, the greater the subtle changes to the heart’s structure and function.
- Among men, drinking more than 14 alcoholic beverages weekly (heavy drinking) was linked with enlargement of the wall of the heart’s main pumping chamber (left ventricular mass).
- Among women, moderate drinkers had small reductions in heart function.
“Women appear more susceptible than men to the cardiotoxic effects of alcohol, which might potentially contribute to a higher risk of alcoholic cardiomyopathy, for any given level of alcohol intake,” said Scott Solomon, M.D., senior author of the study and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of noninvasive cardiology at Brigham and Women’s in Boston.
Because alcohol is a socially acceptable drug, and because it’s advertised in a positive light in media, there’s a tendency to forget that alcohol can be dangerous and that alcohol causes more premature deaths than all other drugs put together. I’m not trying to revive prohibition, but I don’t want to contribute to all the misinformation that surrounds alcohol. Alcohol might harm the elderly. Facts are facts and, especially as seniors are put on many different drugs to extend life that can interact in unhealthy ways with alcohol, the facts of alcohol intake are important to making good healthcare choices. The kids and grandkids will appreciate those extra quality years.
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