For your heart health, how often you drink is actually more important than how much you're drinking overall.
Studies often focus on total volume, but this research found that 'good' cholesterol (HDL-C) levels are driven specifically by how often you drink. Frequent, low-dose drinking improves these levels, while infrequent 'binge' drinking actually lowers them—even if the total weekly alcohol intake is exactly the same.
The impact of drinking patterns on the relationship between alcohol use and levels of serum High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (HDL-C)
SSRN · 6414840
0. AbstractAlcohol intake is known to influence serum high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), yet how drinking patterns shape this association is less researched. We examined whether frequency of drinking versus amount per occasion were differently related to HDL-C in a large population sample of men. Data were taken from a cross-sectional study of 9,218 men aged 40–79 years in the Tromsø study. Alcohol use was assessed by self-report. Fasting HDL-C was measured using standardized laborato