Many studies have shown a strong relationship between an increased intake of alcohol and a lower level of cardiac deaths. Alcohol raises blood levels of protective HDL cholesterol, which helps rid arteries of fatty deposits. Red wine in particular, the favored beverage in France, contains chemicals that lower the risk of blood clots that could touch off a heart attack. Also important may be the pattern of alcohol consumption. In France wine is drunk slowly with meals.
Moderate consumption means a daily limit of two glasses of wine for men and one glass for women.
The French consume two to three times more fiber from whole grains and grain products than do Britons and Americans. These cereal fibers have been linked in at least three major studies to a decreased risk of heart disease, most recently this month in a study of nearly 69,000 middle-aged nurses published in The Journal of the American Medical Association. Similar associations were found in the Iowa Women's Study and in men in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. The French eat about twice as many nuts as Americans do. The fat in nuts is the unsaturated kind that lowers the level of harmful LDL cholesterol.