Study: "Moderate" drinking of no health benefit

A major international study has found no overall health benefits from moderate drinking.

And it questions U-S guidelines that say men can safely drink twice as much as women.

The report, which has 120 authors and covers 600-thousand people, says that while moderate drinking reduces non-fatal heart attack, it's also linked to a host of other cardiovascular problems.

The data show that the bad effects offset the good.

Those include stroke, aneurysms, deadly high blood pressure, and heart failure.

The report, published in the Lancet, says low-risk drinking means no more than seven beers a week for men and women alike.

"Drinking more may reduce the risk of nonfatal heart attack, but actually, let's balance that against the higher risk of stroke and other fatal cardiovascular diseases and shorter life expectancy," said the lead researcher.