Drinking alcohol in moderate quantities can help reduce the risk of asthma
Declared as an incurable disease, asthma is a chronic disease affecting the lungs. It basically feels like a swell in the lungs and the patient becomes very sensitive to the external environmental factors, especially if he is allergic to something. It is not clear yet for the scientists whether allergies and asthma are closely linked, or the person who is allergic to something has just some more severe reactions than others.
This disease is affecting more than 22 million people only in the US and approximately 300 million people suffer from this disease worldwide.
According to this study conducted by Danish researchers, drinking a moderate quantity of alcohol (maximum 6 units per week) can help reduce the risk of developing asthma.
In the study participated approximately 19,349 people, almost all of them being twins, aged between 12 to 14 years old. The participants have been split into groups who followed the instructions of the researchers of the amount of alcohol to be drunk and other group that didn't drink at all. The groups were followed upon for 8 years.
The results have been astonishing: less than 4% of the members of the group who moderately drank a quantity of alcohol weekly developed asthma, whilst for the other group who never drank it was up to 4 times higher the risk of developing the disease. The ones, who drank a lot more than a moderate quantity, developed 2 times higher the risk of having this disease.
Another interesting result of the research was that those who preferred drinking beer developed a higher risk than those who did not have any preferences.
Although previous studies have tried demonstrating a connection between the high amount of alcohol and asthma attacks, this is the first study that comes up with a clear and concise conclusion. This is an important result of a study due to the fact that it helps discover another link in the "asthma equation" and along with new discoveries, develop beneficial medicines for patients.
The research was conducted by Sofie Lieberoth, with a group of researchers from a hospital in Denmark, and it was presented in Amsterdam during European Respiratory Society's Annual Congress.
