Drinking alcohol may keep leg arteries healthy

I blog'd earlier today about telling the difference between lower back pain due to spinal stenosis as contrasted with the similar pain due to poor blood circulation in the legs.

By strange chance the January 2008 edition of American Journal of Epidemiology has an article about

Alcohol Consumption and Lower Extremity Arterial Disease among Older Adults

The article is not against moderate alcohol consumption as you might be tempted to expect. Rather 1 or 2 drinks a day seem to help.

In a study, researchers found that elderly men and women who reported drinking from one to 13 servings of beer, wine, or liquor a week had a 44 percent lower risk of being hospitalized for leg artery disease, compared with elderly men and women who reported no alcohol consumption.

"These results are consistent with the long-standing observation that moderate drinkers have a lower risk of heart attack, which is also caused by blockages in arteries," Dr. Kenneth J. Mukamal, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in Brookline, Massachusetts, told Reuters Health.