4 hours ago
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Talk about a bubbly breakthrough.
Your next toast could be to your ticker, because researchers say that drinking the right boozy beverage can help save your life.
A new study suggests that regularly drinking champagne and/or white wine could lower your risk of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) — a serious condition that claims the lives of over 436,000 Americans each year.
The study, which was published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, identified 56 modifiable risk factors for SCA, based on the data of over 500,000 people.
Researchers suggest that 40% to 63% of cases of sudden cardiac arrest could be prevented by changing just a few of these factors.
Apart from drinking champagne and white wine, some other factors that have protective benefits to your heart include eating more fruit, maintaining a healthy BMI, staying upbeat and being well-educated.
Meanwhile, high blood pressure, poor sleep, sedentary behavior, smoking and excess fat — particularly around the arm – were found to increase the risk of SCA.
“All previous studies investigating the risk factors of SCA were hypothesis-driven and focused on a limited number of candidate exposure factors grounded in prior knowledge or theoretical frameworks,” said lead author Huihuan Luo, a PhD candidate at Fudan University in China.
“We conducted an exposome-wide association study, which examines the relationship between a wide range of environmental exposures and health outcomes.
“The study found significant associations between various modifiable factors and SCA, with lifestyle changes being the most impactful in preventing cases.”
One of the most “intriguing findings,” according to a linked editorial, is that these benefits were linked champagne and white wine specifically, “questioning long-held assumptions about the specificity of red wine’s cardioprotective properties.”
“Research on the underlying mechanisms remains unclear, but these findings reinforce the idea that the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption may be more complex than previously assumed,” wrote Nicholas Grubic from the University of Toronto in Canada and Dakota Gustafson from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada.
The new research comes on the heels of a recent study that casts doubt on the long-held belief that red wine is actually “healthier” than white.
That study suggests that drinking white wine significantly increases the risk of skin cancer — especially in women — although researchers note that the effect could be correlational rather than causational.
In general, booze has become quite the controversial subject in the health sphere.
On one hand, the surgeon general has warned that any amount of alcohol increases the risk of several cancers.
On the other hand, recent research supports the idea that moderate alcohol intake is beneficial to brain health, possibly because alcohol plays a role in one of the other risk factors — social connectedness — thereby potentially outweighing the physical health hazards.
And new studies such as this one suggest a small glass of bubbly can serve as a little warrior for your heart.
As a rule of thumb, drinking booze is “likely safe if you have one or less drinks a day if you have no heart problems, but alcohol intake increases blood pressure, triglycerides, atrial fibrillation and — in higher doses — is a direct toxin to the heart, so much so we have a phrase in cardiology — alcohol cardiomyopathy,” cardiologist Dr. Evan Levine told The Post.
Alcohol cardiomyopathy is a heart condition caused specifically by chronic heavy alcohol consumption — and it can be fatal.
English (US)