For the first time since “the French paradox” aired on CBS’s 60 Minutes in 1991, a major scientific study has the potential to slash bev/al sales.
The French Paradox, of course, is that the French regularly eat high-fat diets and yet don’t suffer from high levels of heart disease. Why? The 60 Minutes episode concluded it was because the French drink red wine on a regular basis.
The broadcast revived an entire industry and put antialcohol zealots on their heels.
Now a new study, published in The Lancet, the British medical journal, has the potential to severely dampen alcohol consumption, cutting it by as much as half.
It concludes that the optimum level of bev/al consumption is just six drinks a week. If you drink at that level, the study says, you should live about one to two years longer than nondrinkers or those who exceed the level.
Current guidelines in the U.S. say women should drink no more than one drink a day and men should drink no more than two.
The study also concluded that drinkers of beer and spirits – but not wine – are at the highest risk for all-cause mortality.
The study is significant because it accessed medical records of more than 600,000 Europeans. An awful lot of studies simply analyze what other studies have found. But this study focused on the original health records.
It also comes at a time when Americans are reviewing their dietary choices, especially in light of mounting evidence that whole food, plant based diets are the healthiest way to eat.