Large Study Shows Drinking Alcohol Is Good For Your Cholesterol Levels
- Reference: 0176698593
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/13/0016206/large-study-shows-drinking-alcohol-is-good-for-your-cholesterol-levels
- Source link:
> Researchers at Harvard University led the study, and it included nearly 58,000 adults in Japan who were followed for up to a year using a database of medical records from routine checkups. Researchers found that when people switched from being nondrinkers to drinkers during the study, they [1]saw a drop in their "bad" cholesterol -- aka low-density lipoprotein cholesterol or LDL. Meanwhile, their "good" cholesterol -- aka high-density lipoprotein cholesterol or HDL -- went up when they began imbibing. HDL levels went up so much, that it actually beat out improvements typically seen with medications, the researchers noted.
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> On the other hand, drinkers who stopped drinking during the study saw the opposite effect: Upon giving up booze, their bad cholesterol went up and their good cholesterol went down. The cholesterol changes scaled with the changes in drinking. That is, for people who started drinking, the more they started drinking, the lower their LDL fell and higher their HDL rose. In the newly abstaining group, those who drank the most before quitting saw the biggest changes in their lipid levels.
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> Specifically, people who went from drinking zero drinks to 1.5 drinks per day or less saw their bad LDL cholesterol fall 0.85 mg/dL and their good HDL cholesterol go up 0.58 mg/dL compared to nondrinkers who never started drinking. For those that went from zero to 1.5 to three drinks per day, their bad LDL dropped 4.4 mg/dL and their good HDL rose 2.49 mg/dL. For people who started drinking three or more drinks per day, their LDL fell 7.44 mg/dL and HDL rose 6.12 mg/dL. For people who quit after drinking 1.5 drinks per day or less, their LDL rose 1.10 mg/dL and their HDL fell by 1.25 mg/dL. Quitting after drinking 1.5 to three drinks per day, led to a rise in LDL of 3.71 mg/dL and a drop in HDL of 3.35. Giving up three or more drinks per day led to an LDL increase of 6.53 mg/dL and a drop in HDL of 5.65.
The study has been [2]published in JAMA Network Open .
[1] https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/03/large-study-shows-drinking-alcohol-is-good-for-your-cholesterol-levels/
[2] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2831319
Take that ya bitches (Score:3)
My liver and other organs are multi-systemically fucked but thank God my cholesterol is good.
Re: (Score:2)
As they say in toxicology -- dosis sola facit venenum
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"There are no confirmed human deaths from THC overdose alone."
Re: (Score:2)
THC has killed a few people, back when it was illegal and smugglers didn’t secure their load.
Actually it has killed a few, but likely because of extenuating medical conditions like with the kid who died from eating a spicy chip. Sure, it had lots of capsaicin, but in almost everyone it would just irritate their face, mouth, bowels, and anything else it touches and be done in like a day. Compared to Tylenol (acetaminophen) it’s quite safe as just a few extra of those pills destroys your live
Re: Take that ya bitches (Score:2)
You can easily eat too many edibles and find yourself unable to walk. I have yet to successfully smoke myself into an equal stupor.
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It would be hard to OD on it considering there are no endocannabinoid receptors in the brain stem, so basically zero chance of it knocking out your central nervous system. Definitely fucks with other parts of the brain though, but not in a way that can e.g. cause you to stop breathing, stop your heartbeat, etc.
Theoretically the only way it could even knock you out at all would be the sheer volume of it fucking with your blood chemistry by a substantial amount, which given it mostly binds to lipoproteins. Th
Drown yourself in it (Score:2)
Here's what your healthy self will look like at 35:
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4XfsDNvOuQ
So what is the proposed mechanism? (Score:2)
If there is evidence for association or a dose-response relationship, then what is the underlying causal mechanism? That's the real question. Alcohol consumption has other health effects, many of which are detrimental. So before this research can be considered useful, it has to explain what is happening at a metabolic level; e.g., what is alcohol consumption doing to lipoprotein synthesis or endogenous cholesterol.
Those Are Not Life Changing Numbers (Score:2)
While this is interesting, those numbers aren't going to let me stop taking my statin, even if I started having 3 drinks per day.
So, it's worse than the toxic effects. There really isn't an upside here regarding cholesterol. I guess it could have come out that it made them worse, so there's that.
Big Idea.. (Score:2)
I guess some of those weight loss drugs also have a side effect of people not wanting alcohol or smoking. I think if all Americans have access to those drugs, well.. I would take it. We would be less fat, drink less, and smoke less. Send me a voucher in my mail and I will redeem it.
Kills your liver & brain, (Score:1)
but happy cholesterol levels :-)
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The word: "judgemental" has the words judge, and mental in them. fyi.
Drinking is good for your health. (Score:2)
is what I heard.
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> is what I heard.
I believe it pairs well with measles.
Large Study Shows Drinking Alcohol is Good (Score:2)
^^ That's as far as I read.