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Study Says What's Good for the Heart May Be Good for the Bones: Presented at ASBMR

By Bonnie Darves

SEATTLE, WA -- October 7, 2004 -- Research findings from investigators at Tufts University and Harvard Medical School suggest that women who drink 1 or 2 glasses of wine a day and men who drink 1 or 2 beers a day have better bone health than their non-drinking counterparts.

The results were presented on October 2nd at the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research's annual meeting.

Previously, studies have linked excessive alcohol consumption with osteoporosis, said lead researcher Katherine Tucker, PhD, professor of nutrition and epidemiology, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts. "The key message [from this new study] is moderation, because we know that drinking more than two [alcoholic beverages] daily can promote osteoporosis," she said.

The study, conducted through analysis of the Framingham Offspring Study, involved 1295 men and 1631 premenopausal and postmenopausal women. The participants self-reported beer, wine, and liquor consumption through a questionnaire and were divided into groups based on their total reported intake. The researchers adjusted results for body mass index (BMI), age, lifestyle, and other factors and repeated analyses replacing total alcohol with beer, wine, and liquor.

The study demonstrated a gain of up to 5% in bone mineral density (BMD) at the hip in postmenopausal women who drank 2 or fewer glasses of wine daily and up to 7% in men who drank 1 or 2 beers daily.

In men, beer was significantly associated with BMD at the femoral neck and trochanter, and approached significance for total BMD and spine. Adjustment for silicon intake attenuated results with beer but not wine.

The researchers found no association between alcohol and BMD in premenopausal women, although the number of these women in the cohort was small.

They concluded that their results "reinforce the idea that moderate alcohol use is protective for bone, but they suggest that wine and beer may contain additional protective components." Although the study did not look at the reason for the BMD benefit, the researchers suggested that the phytochemicals in wine and silicon in beer might be related.


[Presentation title: "Beer Intake in Men, and Wine Intake in Postmenopausal Women, Is Associated With Higher Bone Mineral Density. Abstract F330]

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