Dr. Licia Iacoviello

Does beer play a solo role in alcohol and health symphony?

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The relationship between alcohol consumption and cardiovascular events or all-cause mortality is described as a J-shaped curve attributed to a dose-related combination of beneficial and harmful effects. It remains unclear whether the protective effect is confined to specific beverages or relates to ethanol. In 2002, a meta-analysis conducted on studies, investigating the relation between vascular events and specific alcoholic beverages independently from the amount consumed, showed a protection by wine of 32%, and by beer of 22%. Recently, the possible difference between wine and beer was investigated in relation to the amount of alcohol intake. Dose-response curves were found substantially similar for both alcoholic beverages. We conclude that the amount and the way of drinking (moderately at mealtimes) rather than the beverage type play a major role in cardiovascular prevention. The “beer consumption and total mortality” issue is unresolved at this time, as the few available studies showed conflicting results.

Short biography Licia Iacoviello, MD at Naples University, Italy, PhD at Leiden University, The Netherlands, started her scientific career at the Consorzio Mario Negri Sud, Santa Maria Imbaro, Italy, under the mentorship of Maria Benedetta Donati and Giovanni de Gaetano. Since 2005, she is heading the Laboratory of Genetic and Environmental Epidemiology at the Catholic University of Campobasso, Italy. She is Associate professor of Genetic Epidemiology at the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Buffalo University, N.Y, USA.. She has been the coordinator of several national and international studies on the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease: among these, the European IMMIDIET project. Since 2005 she is conducting the MOLI-SANI project, a cohort, prospective study on 25,000 subjects living in the Molise region. Genetic and environmental protection or risk factors for cardiovascular disease and cancer, with a special focus on alcohol, are the main object of this study. Dr. Iacoviello published more than 190 papers in peer-reviewed international scientific Journals.