Study: Drink more, weigh less

Women who drink wine are less likely to gain weight, according to a new study.

According to a report in British newspaper The Times, moderate female drinkers are less likely to become obese than those who don’t drink.

Medical instructor Lu Wang and associates from Brigham and Women’s hospital in Boston, US, conducted a study involving 19,220 American women, aged 39 or older. The women all had a healthy body weight and researchers asked them to describe their drinking habits. Roughly 38% didn’t drink at all.

The researcher followed the women for 13 years and found that all the women tended to gain weight but non-drinkers gained more. Women gained less weight the more they drank.

One theory is that the livers of regular drinkers develop a separate metabolic course to break down alcohol and surplus energy turns to heat, not fat.

Red wine was associated with the lowest weight gain and beer and spirits with the highest.

The report was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.