There are several reasons why alcohol might help women stay trim.

Light to moderate alcohol consumption, especially red wine, is not only good for a woman's heart, it's also good for her waistline.
The study started out with nearly 20,000 trim middle-aged and older women. Over time, women who drank alcohol in moderation put on less weight and were less apt to become overweight compared to non-drinkers. 
This was true even after taking into account various lifestyle and dietary factors that might influence a woman's weight.
Red wine seemed best at keeping weight in check, but white wine, beer and spirits also had some benefit.

"Our study results showed that middle-aged and older women who have normal body weight initially and consume light-to-moderate amount of alcohol could maintain their drinking habits without gaining more weight compared with similar women who did not drink any alcohol," Dr. Lu Wang from the division of preventive medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, noted

The new study, published in the latest issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, is the first to examine ties between alcohol consumption by a normal-weight individual and the risk of becoming overweight or obese.

The women were all at least 39 years old when the study began.
Approximately:
38 percent said they did not drink alcohol;
33 percent said they drank less than 5 grams daily (a standard drink has about 10 grams of alcohol); 
20 percent drank 5 to less than 15 grams daily;
6 percent drank 15 to less than 30 grams daily; and 
3 percent downed 30 grams of alcohol or more daily (about 2 to 3 drinks per day or more).



During the 13 years the initially normal-weight women were followed,
41 percent became overweight or obese. .However, the teetotalers gained the most weight, with weight gain decreasing with increasing amount of alcohol consumed.
Women who did not drink gained an average of 3.63 kilograms (8 pounds) compared with 1.55 kilograms (3.4 pounds) for those who consumed 30 grams of alcohol or more each day.Women who drank 15 to less than 30 grams per day had the lowest risk of becoming overweight or obese, which was 30 percent less than that of non-drinkers.

Put another way, Wang said an initially trim woman who did not drink alcohol had about a 43 percent chance of becoming overweight or obese over 13 years. Her risk fell to 33 percent if she drank 15 to 30 grams of alcohol a day.

There are several reasons why alcohol might help women stay trim, Wang says. In the current study, women consuming more alcohol ate less, particularly carbohydrates -- a finding seen in other studies. Moreover, it's been shown that women tend to expend more energy after drinking alcohol -- more so than that contained in the alcohol. "Taken together, regular alcohol consumption in light-to-moderate amount may lead to a net energy loss among women," Wang said.

SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, March 8, 2010.

 15 to 30 grams it is so.Doctors orders!

Evelyn