Daily HealthBeat Tip

What a little drink can do

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I�m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Experts say alcohol in moderation can reduce heart attack risk. And researchers have an idea why.

Dr. Kenneth Mukamal at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston focused on blood cells called platelets. Platelets should flow freely. If they clot in narrow arteries around the heart, the result can be a heart attack.

Mukamal�s study, supported by the National Institutes of Health, was in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. It found people who had a drink every other day or so had platelets that were less likely to clot.

"That�s a very similar finding to what we�ve seen for alcohol consumption and risk of heart disease � that the lowest risk seems to be somewhere in the range of about one drink every other day or so, and drinking above that doesn�t lower risk much further." (13 seconds)

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: December 1, 2005

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