ALCOHOL FOUND TO REDUCE STROKE RISK

Multiracial Study Indicates Moderate Drinkers Benefit

CHICAGO (AP) -- Much as a drink or two a day protects against heart
attacks, moderate alcohol consumption wards off strokes, a new study
has found.

The study also found that the type of alcohol consumed -- beer, wine
or liquor -- was unimportant. Any of them, or a combination, was
protective, researchers reported in today's Journal of the American
Medical Association.

``No study has shown benefit in recommending alcohol consumption to
those who do not drink,'' cautioned the authors, led by Dr. Ralph
Sacco of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New
York.

But the new findings support the guidelines of the National Stroke
Association, which say moderate drinkers may protect themselves from
strokes by continuing to consume alcohol, the authors said.

The protective effect of moderate drinking against heart attacks is
well established, but the data has been conflicting about alcohol and
strokes, the authors said. The new study helps settle the question and
is the first to find that African-Americans and Latinos benefit as
well as whites, according to the authors.

Further research is needed among other groups, such as
Asian-Americans, who past studies suggest may get no stroke protection
from alcohol or may even be put at greater risk, researchers say.

Among groups where the protective effect exists, its mechanism appears
to differ from the protective effect against heart attacks, which
occurs through boosts in levels of so-called ``good'' cholesterol, or
HDL, the authors said.

``In our analyses, much of the protective effect of alcohol on stroke
risk was independent of HDL,'' the authors said.

They speculated alcohol may protect against stroke by acting on some
other blood trait, such as the tendency of blood platelets to clump,
which is key in forming the blood clots that can cause strokes.

The researchers studied 677 New York residents who lived in the
northern part of Manhattan and had strokes between July 1, 1993, and
June 1997. For comparison, they enrolled 1,139 similar residents who
had not had strokes. About half of the subjects were Latino, just over
one-fourth were black and the remainder were white. Slightly more than
half were women. The mean age was 70.

After taking into account differences in other factors that could
affect stroke risk, such as high blood pressure, the researchers
estimated that subjects who consumed up to two drinks daily were only
half as likely to have suffered clot-type strokes as non-drinkers.
Clot-type strokes account for 80 percent of all strokes, a leading
cause of U.S. deaths and disability.

Stroke risk increased with heavier drinking. At seven drinks per day,
risk was almost triple that of moderate drinkers, researchers said.