Drinking alcohol most days of the week can significantly protect against developing diabetes, a study has found.
Consuming alcohol three or four days per week was associated with a reduced risk of 27% in men and 32% in women, compared with abstaining.
Wine had the biggest effect, probably because it contains chemical compounds that improve blood sugar balance, said researchers.
(Katie Collins/PA)
But there was a warning to women to stay clear of the gin bottle. A daily tipple of “mothers’ ruin” or other spirits increased the diabetes risk to women by 83%.
Previous studies had already suggested that light to moderate alcohol consumption can cut the risk of diabetes, but the new research is the first to focus on drinking frequency.
Scientists studied data on 70,551 men and women taking part in a large Danish health survey who were quizzed about their drinking habits and monitored for five years.
(Rui Vieira/PA)
The authors, led by Professor Janne Tolstrup from the University of Southern Denmark, wrote in the journal Diabetologia: “Our findings suggest that alcohol drinking frequency is associated with the risk of diabetes and that consumption of alcohol over 3 to 4 weekdays is associated with the lowest risks of diabetes, even after taking average weekly alcohol consumption into account.”
During the follow-up period, a total of 859 men and 887 women from the study group developed diabetes. The investigation did not distinguish between the two forms of diabetes, Type 1 and the much more common Type 2.
In terms of the amount of alcohol consumed, men who downed 14 drinks per week were 43% less likely to develop diabetes than those who drank nothing.
The study found alcohol consumption over 3 to 4 weekdays is associated with the lowest risks of diabetes (Peter Byrne/PA)
The diabetes risk to women who consumed nine drinks per week was 58% lower than it was for non-drinkers.
For both men and women, seven or more glasses of wine per week lowered the risk of diabetes by 25% – 30% compared with having less than one drink of wine.
One to six beers per week reduced diabetes risk by 21% in men but had no effect on women.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel