Alcohol and the heart

Recomendado pelo AMICOR Luis Beck da Silva

Alcohol and the heart: the good, the bad and the worse in heart failure
Editorial Heart 
Download from http://heart.bmj.com/ on April 13, 2018 - Published by group.bmj.com

Luis Eduardo Rohde,1,2 Luis Beck-da-Silva1,2

There is a general acceptance among researchers, physicians and even the general population that the consumption of moderate amounts of alcoholic beverages may have beneficial effect in the heart. A large number of experimental, clinical and epidemiological studies presumably give scientific support to this perception. There have been reports on favourable effects of different alcoholic beverages on several surrogate end-points of atherosclerosis, such as blood lipoproteins, clotting and fibrinolytic factors, endothelin and oxidative stress. Wine is the prototype beverage associated to cardioprotection, with additional positive consequences in the cardiovascular system allegedly attributed to the presence of natural polyphenols, particularly resveratrol.