Depression Risk Can Be Reduced By This Very Pleasurable Method

A very pleasurable way to reduce depression risk.

A very pleasurable way to reduce depression risk.

Wine drunk in moderation can reduce the risk of developing depression, research finds.

Moderate alcohol intake can have a similar protective effect on depression as that found for heart disease.

Professor Miguel A. Martínez-González, one of the study’s authors, said:

“Lower amounts of alcohol intake might exert protection in a similar way to what has been observed for coronary heart disease.

In fact, it is believed that depression and coronary heart disease share some common disease mechanisms.”

To reach these conclusions researchers followed over 5,500 people for between 5 and 7 years.

At the start of the study none had suffered from depression and did not have alcohol-related problems.

People naturally drank varying amounts and different drinks, but the most commonly consumed beverage was wine.

The results showed that the lowest rates of depression were seen in those who were light to moderate drinkers.

Light to moderate drinkers had between two and seven small glasses of wine per week.

The researchers adjusted for other factors that could have been important, such as social factors, diet and smoking.

Scientists think some of the protective effects are provided by resveratrol and other phenolic compounds in the wine.

The study was published in the journal BMC Medicine (Geo et al., 2013).


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Hello, and welcome to PsyBlog. Thanks for dropping by.

This site is all about scientific research into how the mind works.

It’s mostly written by psychologist and author, Dr Jeremy Dean.

I try to dig up fascinating studies that tell us something about what it means to be human.

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Author: Jeremy Dean

Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD is the founder and author of PsyBlog. He holds a doctorate in psychology from University College London and two other advanced degrees in psychology. He has been writing about scientific research on PsyBlog since 2004. He is also the author of the book "Making Habits, Breaking Habits" (Da Capo, 2013) and several ebooks.