Alcohol, Diet, and Running

What do a glass of Merlot, the produce department of your grocery store and a daily six-mile run have in common?

They all may work together to benefit your health, according to a new study of the exercise habits and other actions of a group of about 9,000 runners.

The findings were the latest tidbits to come out of the National Runners' Health Study conducted by epidemiologist Paul Williams and others at the University of California Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The latest study, which was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, looked at alcohol consumption in vegetarian and non-vegetarian runners.

Other research has shown that although a vegetarian diet can lower total cholesterol, it also can lower HDL cholesterol, the so-called good cholesterol.

Exercise such as running can raise HDL cholesterol.

The study found that distance running had the same beneficial effects in vegetarians as it did in non-vegetarians, in that it tended to raise levels of HDL cholesterol and reduce body fat.

In other words, running and other vigorous exercise can help vegetarians avoid having low HDL levels while retaining the other health benefits of their diet, Williams said.

The study also found that distance running and moderate alcohol consumption contributed, independently, to raising HDL levels.

For instance, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian men, who ran more than 44 miles a week and drank more than six ounces of alcohol a week (the equivalent of two glasses of wine a day) were five times more likely to have an HDL level of 60 milligrams per deciliter than non-drinkers who ran less than 14 miles a week.

A level of 60 milligrams per deciliter is considered to be protective against heart disease.

Women who ran more than 44 miles and drank more than six ounces of alcohol a week were more than twice as likely to have heart-protecting HDL levels than non-drinking women who ran less than 14 miles a week.

But Williams did not recommend that non-drinking runners begin drinking.

He noted that other research shows alcohol consumption can raise blood pressure, a negative impact that is not counteracted by running.

For those who do drink and run, the maximum beneficial effect of alcohol on HDL comes from six ounces of alcohol a week, which works out to about two glasses of wine a day.

However, that was much higher than the amount most of the runners consumed.

On average, men who don't eat red meat drank the equivalent of a little more than three glasses of wine a week, while the meat-eating male runners drank an average of about a glass of wine a day.

Among women runners who don't eat meat, the average alcohol consumption was the equivalent of two glasses of wine a week. The meat-eating females drank about four glasses per week.

The study also found that running tended to reduce the impact of red meat on a person's body composition.

Red meat consumption has been associated with bigger waistlines, as well as an increased body mass index or BMI, a measure of the relationship between an individual's weight and height.

In the study, meat-eaters tended to have higher BMIs.

Higher fruit consumption tended to lower BMIs and trim waistlines in runners.

Williams said the findings show that the more you exercise, the less you pay for poor diet choices.

"If you can't control your diet, you should look at exercise," he said.

In other studies, Williams found that long-distance runners (more than 40 miles a week) had half the prevalence of high blood pressure, a 50% reduction in the need to use medication to lower blood pressure or bad cholesterol levels and a 30% lower risk of coronary heart disease than those who ran less than 10 miles a week.

But running won't cure all ills.

Last year, in a study of male runners ages 18 to 50, Williams found that if their weekly mileage remained constant over the years, even high-mileage runners added inches to their waistlines. For instance, a man who runs 10 to 20 miles a week at age 30 can expect his 33-inch waist to grow to nearly 35 inches by age 50, even if he maintains the same weekly mileage.

In fact, Williams said nearly 22% of the 4,800 runners in his study fell into the moderately overweight category, based on government weight charts, even though they ran an average of nearly 24 miles a week.

Williams has calculated that by increasing your weekly mileage by 11/2 miles every year, a person can maintain the same waistline throughout middle age.