A new study suggests that people who have an alcoholic drink or two a day may have a lower risk of becoming obese than either teetotalers or heavy drinkers.
It seems that researchers in the U.S. have found that among more than 8,200 U.S. adults, those who said they enjoyed a drink every day were 54 percent less likely than non-drinkers to be obese.
Similarly, those who drank a little more (two drinks per day) or a little less (a few drinks per week) had a lower risk of obesity than teetotalers did.
However heavy drinking, apparently raised the odds of obesity, with people who downed four or more drinks a day 46 percent more likely to be obese than non-drinkers.
Binge drinkers also showed a greater prevalence of obesity.
Study co-author James E. Rohrer, a professor of health services research at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, says that previous studies have linked moderate drinking to better heart health, but only a few have looked at the relationship between drinking and body weight and it is a fairly new line of research.
Rohrer says it is possible that the lower prevalence of obesity among moderate drinkers may explain the lower risk of heart disease.
Rohrer does however stress that the findings do not imply that overweight people should take up drinking for the sake of their waistlines, as alcohol is high in calories, and it's not yet clear why moderate drinking is related to less risk of obesity.