Now here’s something you don’t hear every day: you can be healthier by drinking more.  Perhaps that generalizes the situation too much, but a remarkable study has shown that middle-aged women who are at risk for diabetes can reduce that risk with moderate drinking.  In fact, the risk was 30 percent lower in women who drank than in those who did not.

Specifically, more than 80,000 women were tracked for 26 years and their diets monitored.  Of the women who ate highly refined foods such as white bread and sugary drinks, the ones who drank moderately had a 30 percent lower risk of getting diabetes than women who ate the same foods but did not drink.

A senior author of the study, Dr. Frank Hu, speculates that perhaps alcohol affects the body’s release of insulin, which can help combat blood sugar spikes after a meal. 

The study defines moderate drinking as consuming about half an ounce per day, or the equivalent of two drinks per week.  This doesn’t seem like a huge amount of alcohol to consume, so if you enjoy a drink or two every week you are probably do little harm and quite a bit of good when you combine that drinking with high intake of processed foods.

The authors of the study are not advocating more drinking, but it is a starting point to more research to discover just how and why alcohol intake affects the diabetes risk.  Anything that leads us closer to unlocking the keys to diabetes prevention is worth the study, in my opinion.