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Many people believe the popular notion that drinking a certain amount of alcohol can help protect your self from heart attacks. The American Heart Association (AHA) claims that there are better ways to protect your heart, however.
The best way to protect your self against heart disease is to exercise on a regular basis, maintain a healthy weight, and lower your blood pressure and cholesterol with the right medical products. There is no scientific proof that drinking wine everyday will protect your heart better than these preventative measures.
Claims that drinking wine helped lower the incidence of heart disease first were made after studying the low occurrence of heart disease in parts of Europe with high-fat diets where wine is drank on a regular basis.
One theory about regular wine drinking is that the antioxidants in red wine are good for your heart; therefore they lower your risk of heart disease. These same antioxidants can be found in many fruits and vegetables, however, and there is still no proof that they really are good for your heart.
Scientific studies show that moderate alcohol consumption (one to two drinks a day) can increase the blood levels of good high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol by up to twelve percent according to the medical equipment readings. However, this increase is similar to that seen with cholesterol lowering drugs and exercise programs.
Alcohol consumption has many negative effects such as raising your risk of alcohol addiction, stroke, diabetes complications and breast cancer. With all of these negative effects, it’s important to understand that alcohol’s protective powers have yet to be proven. Until alcohol is proven to be beneficial to your heart, it would be better to focus on preventative measures such as getting regular used EKG machine checkups, maintaining a healthy body weight, cholesterol level and blood pressure.
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