More Good News About Your Love of the Drink

by Liz Colville

Research has long hammered it into us that males can get away with having two drinks most days and be healthy — healthier than men who don’t drink — while women should only have one. But a new study says women can actually have one to TWO drinks most days. Look at this!

Qi Sun, a Harvard medical instructor, looked at nearly 14,000 women who had survived to age 70. Dr. Sun said he found that 1,499 of the women were free of major diseases like cancer and heart disease and had no physical impairments or memory problems. He looked at the amount of drinking these women had done at midlife, or about age 58 on average. Women who reported having one to two drinks most days of the week had a 28% increase in the chance of “successfully surviving” to at least age 70 compared with non-drinkers. Like other studies, Dr. Sun found women drinking most days of the week were more likely to be healthier than women who drank one or two days a week.

So get that wine cellar going! But don’t open it until you feel you’re sufficiently middle-aged. For me, this shall be some time next week.