Women who drank anywhere from a few alcoholic drinks a month to more than three a week in the year leading up to a heart attack ended up living longer than women who never drank alcohol, according to a US study.
The findings, which focused on more than 1,000 women and were published in the American Journal of Cardiology, add to mounting evidence that alcohol, regardless of the type of drink, can be good for the heart.
"One thing that was interesting was that we didn't see differences among different beverage types," said Joshua Rosenbloom, a student at Harvard Medical School who led the study.
"The most recent evidence suggests that it's the alcohol itself that's beneficial."
There was a similarly reduced risk of dying within the follow up period whether the women drank wine, beer or hard liquor, Rosenbloom and his colleagues found.
In an earlier study including men and women, O'Keefe found that people who continued to drink moderately after having a heart attack had better health than those who abstained.
