People who enjoy a glass or two of wine or beer every day could be helping to keep their bones strong. However, drinking more - and choosing hard liquor instead of wine or beer - may actually weaken bones. Keeping track of the health benefits and risks of alcohol is tough. It is very confusing for people because alcohol has such diverse effects on different things for example, while drinking may prevent heart disease, it increases the risk of breast cancer. Researchers from America investigated how different types of alcohol affected bone mineral density (BMD) in 1,182 men, 1,289 postmenopausal women, and 248 premenopausal women. Study participants ranged in age from 29 to 86 years. It was found that men who had a glass or two of wine or beer daily had denser bones than non-drinkers but those who downed two or more servings of hard liquor a day had significantly lower BMD than the men who drank up to two glasses of liquor daily. The women who drank more than two glasses a day of alcohol or wine had greater BMD than the women who drank less. Nonetheless, the researchers pointed out that this finding shouldn't be seen as meaning that the more a woman drinks the better it is for her bones. Beer is a good source of silicon, a mineral needed for bone health that has become increasingly rare in the modern diet. Beer's silicon content accounted for at least some of its bone-building effects in men. Beer and wine may be better for people than liquor because they contain potentially beneficial plant substances such as resveratrol, while hard liquor has most natural substances distilled out of it. It's likely that alcohol may help build bones by boosting oestrogen levels, which is the mechanism that may also account for the high risk of breast cancer seen for women who drink even moderately. The main message of the study is that if you are drinking up to one or two glasses of wine or beer a day, you don't need to stop for your bones' sake, in fact it's helpful. But drinking is a personal decision and in no way encouraged for the sake of BMD.
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
March 2009