A prospective study conducted by Mukamal and colleagues (2003) examined alcohol consumption and the risk of myocardial infarction among men over a 12-year period in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Both quantity and frequency of drinking were analyzed, along with type of alcohol consumed and changes in consumption over time. Alcohol consumption was associated with decreased risk of myocardial infarction, regardless of alcohol type, and those who reported drinking 3–4 days per week or 5–7 days per week had decreased risk compared to those who drank less than once a week. Several other studies investigating alcohol use and cardiovascular health outcomes have also reported a protective effect for low-level drinking as measured by quantity and frequency in both men and women (Britton and Marmot 2004; Mukamal, Jensen, Grønbæk et al. 2005; Tolstrup, Jensen, Tjonneland et al. 2006; Mukamal, Chen, Rao et al. 2010), and this protective effect has been corroborated by meta-analyses (Costanzo, Di Castelnuovo, Donati et al. 2010; Ronksley, Brien, Turner et al. 2011; Larsson, Orsini and Wolk 2015; Mostofsky, Mukamal, Giovannucci et al. 2016).
