Drink up baby. I'm a firm believer in moderation in life; with the additional axiom that consuming substances like wine, beer and coffee, certain herbal concoctions, etc. that have been part of humankind's diet for centuries is probably a more healthy choice 12 times out of 13. Same with food: I'll take a romaine lettuce & feta cheese salad over a microwaved burrito any day of any week. Yadda yadda. Pour me a drink, will ya?
Drink a Day May Keep Older Women Sharp:
Not only red wine but also white wine, beer and hard liquor appear to protect against mental decline in older women, two new studies have found.
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Women who consumed about a drink a day (up to 15 grams of alcohol, or about half an ounce), the researchers found, had significantly better test results - so much so that in their mental performance, they scored about a year and a half younger than the nondrinkers and those who drank 15 to 30 grams a day.The study appeared in the Jan. 20 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.
A second paper, published in the Feb. 1 issue of The American Journal of Epidemiology, reported similar results in a group of 4,461 women.
The study, by Dr. Mark Espeland and his colleagues at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., used different tests of mental abilities and found that women who had one drink a day scored higher than those who did not drink at all.
The reason that alcohol seems to have this beneficial effect is not entirely clear, but it is probably connected to the significantly lower rates of cardiovascular disease among moderate drinkers, a phenomenon that has been known for some time.
{Health}
