A Danish study of 50,000 people released yesterday revealed that “men who drank daily had a 41% reduced risk of coronary heart disease compared with a 7% drop in men who drank once a week.” Oddly, the benefits for women were not as dramatic. For them, “the risk of heart disease fell by a third with a weekly drink but did not fall further in daily drinkers.”

According to a BBC article:

But for women, although drinking on at least one day a week was associated with a 36% reduced risk of heart disease compared to those who drank more rarely, the risk was the same whether women had one drink a week or drank moderately each day.

The gender bias is believed to be either “hormonal, or related to the type of alcohol consumed or there may be differences in the way men and women’s bodies process alcohol.”

Also from the BBC article:

Lead researcher Professor Morten Gronbaek from the National Institute of Public Health in Denmark said: “It has been shown that frequency of drinking has a larger role than amount but this points towards the fact there is a gender difference.”

“One or two drinks in men, or one drink a day in women, would be sufficient for heart disease – you wouldn’t get any more beneficial effects from drinking more.”