Cardio Health: Drink to your Heart’s Content

Here is an interesting health tip. Drink. Yes, drinking! And I mean alcohol.

Well, do not be surprised. Although very often we hear that consuming alcohol is bad for our health, studies have shown that drinking moderately can actually help to protect our heart from diseases and breakdowns.

Here’s how moderate drinking helps:
1. Moderate alcohol intake improves fat balance in the blood and improves anti-clotting factors in our bodies. Alcohol also has a mild anti-coagulating effect, keeping platelets from clumping together to form clots.
2. Alcohol increases the levels of high-density lipoprotein, also known as good cholesterol, protects against the formation of plaques on blood vessel walls.
3. Drinking alcohol moderately also helps to regulate the level of insulin in the body.

Typically, a woman's body metabolizes alcohol differently so that 1 alcoholic beverage in a woman is equal to 2 in a man. Also, the older you are, the less efficiently the body metabolizes alcohol. However, it has to be noted that the level of moderate drinking varies from one individual to another. Although defined as less than four ounce equivalents per day, moderate drinking for one may be excessive drinking (or even crossing the legally drunk limit) for another. So, the next time, before you finish that last few cans in your fridge, do remember your threshold for alcohol. You wouldn’t want to suffer that horrendous hangover the next morning, do you?