Search Here

Studies researching the effects of alcohol have repeatedly found both advantages and disadvantages. For example, a recent study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that women who drank alcohol before their first menstrual cycle and before their first pregnancy were tied to a higher risk of breast cancer. This study looked at a younger group of women. In a new study, researchers looked at an older group of adults and found that drinking a glass of wine each day could prevent depression.

For this study, researchers looked at data from a cohort study that tracked over 5,500 seniors who were considered to be light-to-moderate drinkers for seven years. Throughout the seven years, the researchers administered medical exams, interviews and questionnaires that looked at the participants' diets. The participants fell in the age group of 55 to 80. At the beginning of the study, all of the participants did not have depression or any alcohol-associated diseases.

The researchers found that the main alcohol of choice was wine. After looking at the data, the researchers found that people who drank more alcohol, but at moderate amounts, were less likely to suffer from depression. The researchers recorded that the lowest rates of depression were seen in people who drank from two to seven small glasses of wine each week. The researchers found this still held true when they took other factors, such as smoking, diet and marital status into account.

"Lower amounts of alcohol intake might exert protection in a similar way to what has been observed for coronary heart disease. In fact, it is believed that depression and coronary heart disease share some common disease mechanisms," the study's senior author, Professor Miguel A. Martinez-Gonzalez said according to Medical Xpress.

The study was published in the Biomed Central's open access journal, BMC Medicine.