Battling Heart and Stroke

Heart experts from all over Europe and the world met in Munich, Germany last August 30 to September 3 to share the latest research findings on cardiovascular sciences at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress 2008. Today and in the coming days, I will be presenting some extracts from reports presented at the Congress.

One of the most interesting presentations under the topic “Cardiovascular Disease Prevention - Risk Assessment and Management” is entitled “The gourmand’s heart - a bitter sweet relationship?” where Spanish heart expert S.S. Menendez summarized the latest updates on the health effects of four common food and drinks in the Western diet, namely tea, coffee, wine and chocolate. More →

Part I: The Health Benefits of Alcohol - “Eat, drink and be healthy”

Drinking alcohol has been linked to a wide range of health effects, ranging from the very good to the very bad. A post in June reported on the adverse effects of heavy drinking on cardiovascular health. On the other hand, light to moderate drinking has been shown to have long lasting beneficial effects. The only problem is how to determine the boundary between healthy and unhealthy alcohol consumption. Some researchers are concerned that recent reports about the health benefits of alcohol may mislead people to drink more than they should, thereby doing more harm than good to their health.

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