Alcohol: Is There Anything It Can't Do?

Drink up, folks. You'll feel better later.

A REGULAR tipple can reduce the severity of rheumatoid arthritis, researchers have found.

The research, published in the journal Rheumatology, found that arthritis sufferers who drink alcohol regularly are less susceptible to severe symptoms of the debilitating disease.

The study also found that teetotalers were four times more likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis than people who drank alcohol on more than ten days a month.

Researchers looked at 873 patients with rheumatoid arthritis and compared them with 1004 people without the disease.

Dr James Maxwell, who contributed to the report, said patients who drank alcohol most frequently were found to have symptoms less severe than those who never drank alcohol or only did so infrequently.

Dr Maxwell said: “X-rays showed there was less damage to joints, blood tests showed lower levels of inflammation, and there was less joint pain, swelling and disability.