You can be the designated driver, baby

An alcoholic drink a day can significantly reduce the risk for heart disease in men, a new study finds, but women get almost the same benefit with only one drink a week.

The report, which appears online in the British medical journal BMJ, suggests that for women, alcohol intake is the primary protective factor, while for men, it is drinking frequency.

[...]

For men, the more they drank, the lower the risk. One drink a week lowered the risk by about 7 percent, two to four drinks by 22 percent and five or six drinks a week by 29 percent. Those who drank every day had a 41 percent lower risk of heart disease than those who did not drink at all. Even among men who had up to 35 drinks per week, the protection persisted.

With women, the trend was different. One drink a week lowered the risk by 36 percent, but daily drinking lowered it by 35 percent. In other words, for women, alcohol consumption had a significant protective effect, but the frequency of drinking had none.

Okay, so that's up to 35 neat single malts a week for me, one appletini a week for you, honey. Sound fair?

[...] Dr. Gronbaek said that drinking was not a substitute for exercise or good diet. "You shouldn't avoid exercise," he said, "and then try to compensate by drinking."

Damn, so much for that plan. But how do 12 ounce curls fit into all of this?