Heart disease
is the most common cause of death in this country. Fortunately, the risk for heart attack can be significantly reduced by making simple diet and lifestyle changes. You probably already know the importance of lowering the fat and cholesterol content of your diet but what about alcohol? How does alcohol affect the risk for heart attack?

While it may seem from an intuitive standpoint that alcohol consumption would be a negative when it comes to the heart, just the opposite may be true as long as it's not consumed in excessive amounts.

A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine addressed the issue of alcohol and risk for heart attack. This study looked at 8,867 men who led a healthy lifestyle and were of normal weight, nonsmoking, and active. They surveyed the men about their alcohol drinking habits and followed them over a sixteen year period. The results showed that men who drank a moderate amount of alcohol each day had a lower risk for heart attack than man who avoided alcohol completely. Moderate alcohol consumption was defined as drinking anywhere from a half of a drink to two drinks each day.

While this association is certainly encouraging, it should be balanced with the knowledge that alcohol consumption is associated with other health problems such as liver disease and may increase the risk of certain types of cancer. For this reason, it would be hard to universally recommend daily alcohol consumption as a preventive measure for a heart attack. It should also be noted that this study was carried out only on men and alcohol may not carry the same risk reduction for women. Alcohol consumption for women also has the drawback of increasing the risk of breast cancer.

If you're a male, should you engage in moderate alcohol consumption to reduce the risk of heart attack? The best approach may be to discuss this issue with your doctor. If you have a normal liver and a low risk for alcoholism, your doctor may encourage you to have a drink or two each day. In this case, red wine might be a good choice since it's high in heart healthy polyphenols. It would be important to restrict the consumption of any alcohol drink to two a day or less to potentially avoid other medical problems related to alcohol consumption. Your doctor might also recommend having your liver enzymes checked by a blood test every six months if you're drinking alcohol on a regular basis.

Whether or not you drink moderate amounts of alcohol to reduce the risk for heart attack, eating a healthy diet, maintaining a healthy weight, exercising, and avoiding smoking are always good practices for heart attack prevention.