Drinking alcohol may protect against diabetes
Good news for those who enjoy a tipple! Drinking alcohol may protect you against developing type 2 diabetes, according to a new Danish study published in the journal of Diabetologia.
Consuming alcohol three or four days per week was associated with a 27 per cent reduced diabetic risk in men and 32 per cent in women, compared with those abstaining from alcohol.
But there are a few caveats… it seems only beer and wine work. Spirits had no effect on men and in fact, increased the diabetes risk of women by 83 per cent.
Scientists analysed the data of 70,551 men and women who took part in a large Danish health survey over five years. During the follow-up period, a total of 859 men and 887 women from the study group developed diabetes.
The authors, led by Professor Janne Tolstrup from the University of Southern Denmark, concluded: "Our findings suggest that alcohol drinking frequency is associated with the risk of diabetes and that consumption of alcohol over 3 to 4 weekdays is associated with the lowest risks of diabetes, even after taking average weekly alcohol consumption into account."
The study found that men who consumed 14 drinks per week were 43 per cent less likely to develop diabetes than those who drank nothing.
Women who had nine drinks per week was 58 per cent lower than it was for non-drinkers.
For both men and women, seven or more glasses of wine per week lowered the risk of diabetes by 25 per cent. Wine has the biggest effect, which researchers attributes to the chemical compounds in wine that improve blood sugar balance.
One to six beers per week reduced diabetes risk by 21 per cent in men but had no effect on women.
Previous studies had already found that a light to moderate alcohol consumption can cut the risk of diabetes, but the new research is the first to focus on drinking frequency.
The study didn’t find a cause-and-effect between alcohol consumption and diabetes, but an association between the two.