Benefits Of Drinking Dismissed By Study

A few drinks a day may not stave off the cardiologist after all, the federal government has warned. Indeed, the benefits to cardiovascular health attributed to moderate consumption of alcohol may well be the result of other lifestyle or biological factors, said a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that was released today. "If we compared this (alcohol) to a pharmaceutical drug, there's no way in hell the FDA would've approved it," said Tim Naimi, M.D., an internist and medical epidemiologist at the CDC's Chronic Disease Center, in an interview. Moderate alcohol consumption should not be recommended to improve cardiovascular health, he added. "It should be viewed with extreme caution because there are no randomized studies on it."