Drinking beats Exercise for Heart Health?

I've blogged about the possible health benefits of alcohol consumption before (see the links below). In one post, I discussed red wine consumption, resveratrol, and expressed my feeling that, if you're diabetic, and are going to drink anything at all it should be a very, very, dry red wine. In another post, I discussed red wine again and the polyphenols that are present in it.

Today, I came across an interesting article written by Dr. Sanjay Gupta that put forth an "interesting" notion, which is that you may be able to trade off daily exercise for one to two drinks per day.

You can see why I put the word "interesting" in quotes. I don't think any sane person would literally recommend giving up exercise in favor of hitting the bottle, even if the alcohol consumption is minimal. However, the information Gupta reported was nonetheless interesting (that word again).

As Gupta states, in a cardiovascular sense, exercise and alcohol affect people in similar ways. Namely, when it comes to cholesterol. They both raise HDL, or high density lipoproteins.

HDL is something you want high levels of because it helps get rid of fatty buildup along the interior walls of blood vessels (which form as a result of LDL cholesterol).

Interesting points from the article:

1. The highest rates of cardiovascular disease are seen in people who neither exercise nor use alcohol.

2. Moderate consumption and exercise lowers the risk by half.

3. Alcohol consumption, in combination with caffeine, may lower insulin resistance.

Here are those two prior posts I mentioned:

English cider apples are rich in polyphenols which are also found in Red Wine

Are there health benefits to Drinking - Is it healthy?