Female wine drinkers at lower obesity risk than teetotalers

Female wine drinkers can take heart: A new study has shown that moderate drinkers have a lower risk of obesity than teetotalers.

The study, which included more than 19,000 women, also found that ladies who enjoy a glass of wine after work are likely to gain less weight than those who stick to mineral water, reports <i>The Times</i>.

To reach the conclusion, Lu Wang, a medical instructor at Brigham and Women's hospital, Boston, and colleagues asked 19,220 American women aged 39 or older with a healthy body weight to describe their drinking habits in a questionnaire. About 38 percent drank no alcohol.

After following the participants for the next 13 years, the researchers found that all the women tended to gain weight but the non-drinkers gained the most. The women's overall weight gain decreased as alcohol intake increased.

The report, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, also found that red wine was associated with the lowest weight gain; beer and spirits were linked to the highest weight gain.