Drink up boys, it’s good for you—or for your heart at least, says a new study. Drinking cut heart disease risk by 35% to 50% in the survey conducted in Spain. It followed 15,500 men and 26,000 women, and found that daily heavy drinking did wonders for the men’s heart health. Women benefited to a much smaller extent, reports the BBC. The type of alcohol didn’t matter much.
The more men drank, the greater their risk fell, with the heaviest drinkers—those taking three to 11 shots a day—seeing an average 50% drop. The researchers say they isolated out anyone who’d quit drinking because they were already in poor health; such “sick abstainers” have been used to explain away similar results in the past. Health experts rushed to criticize the study, pointing out that drinking increases the risk of other diseases, and in general isn’t very good for you.
