Myocardium infarct occurs when the cardiac muscle is deprived of oxygenated blood. Coronary arteries, providing blood are obstructed or blocked up. Cholesterol appears to be the principal factor responsible for this.
In 1786, the English Doctor Herbeden already noted that wine relieved pains of patients suffering from angina pectoris.
In 1970, researches where initiated by Doctor Arthur Klatsky, cardiologist at the "Kaiser Permanente", hospital center in Oakland (California). He initiated a study on over 100 000 people.
The first results where published in 1974, and indicate the fact that the risk of death from coronary diseases (notably myocardium infarct) is lower for moderate consumers (1 to 3 glasses of wine a day): 6,2 to a 1 000 against 8,2 to a 1 000 for people who do not drink wine and 11 to one thousand for people drinking more than six glasses of wine a day.
Doctor Rimm of the School of Public Health of Harvard - Cambridge - Massachusetts calculated that the risk of heart disease is reduced from 25 to 45% for people drinking 1 or 2 glasses of wine a day.
According to a study by Doctor Saint-Leger, published in the famous English medical publication "The Lancet" in 1979, France and Italy, largest consumers of wine (62 litres of wine a year per inhabitant) registers the number of death due to myocardium infarct 2 to 5 times inferior to death registered in Scotland, Ireland and United States.
An other study published in "The Lancet" a year later, signed by Doctor Werth, shows that between 1952 and 1978 consumption of wine in the States rose by 52% and that at the same time death due to myocardium infarct fell down by 22%.
According to a study by Doctor Dean, for an equal consumption the risk of death by myocardium infarct is 1,03 for beer-drinkers, 1,00 for spirit-drinkers and only 0,47 for wine-drinkers.
