Moderate Drinking May Protect Against Asthma

By:
in Asthma
Published: November 17, 2011

Drinking a moderate amount of alcohol can actually reduce the risk of developing asthma. That’s the surprising finding of an eight-year Danish study.

In the study, researchers followed 19,349 twins between the ages of 12 and 41. The lowest risk of asthma was found in the group that consumed one to six “units” of alcohol per week. (One unit of alcohol is equivalent to half a pint of beer or about half a glass of wine.)

Teetotalers take note: those who drank rarely or never had the highest risk of developing asthma; they were 1.4-times as likely to get it. But moderation is key, since heavy drinkers were also at increased risk, at 1.2-times as likely to end up with the respiratory disease.

The results also show that a preference for drinking beer was associated with a higher risk when compared with no preference.