Arthur L. Klatsky

Arthur L. Klatsky, MD, is an adjunct investigator at the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research and a senior consultant in cardiology (retired July 1999), at Kaiser Permanente Northern California. He served as staff physician at the Kaiser Permanente Oakland facility from 1961 to 1999, chief of the Division of Cardiology from 1978 to 1994, and director of the Coronary Care Unit from 1968 to 1990.

Since 1977, Dr. Klatsky has been principal investigator of a series of studies on the relations between drinking alcoholic beverages and health. He has written and lectured extensively on relationships of alcohol consumption to cardiovascular conditions. He has also researched and published articles about coffee, tea, and health, and about cardiovascular risk in Asian-American ethnic groups. In 1992, he received the first Thomas B. Turner Award for Research Excellence by the Alcoholic Beverage Medical Research Foundation. In 1995, the National Academies of Practice named him a Distinguished Practitioner. Since 1997, he has been associate editor, and since 2006, senior editor of The Permanente Journal. In 2004, he was given the Morris Collen Lifetime Achievement Research Award by the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, Northern California. In 2008, he became a member of the board of trustees of the Alcoholic Beverage Medical Research Foundation.

Arthur Klatsky comments on his lifetime experience in giving advice about alcohol and health: “The people I see are mostly middle-aged or older persons at high risk of dying.” Unless they have a history or special risk of problem drinking by this point in their lives, I know they are unlikely to become heavy drinkers. So if my patients can benefit from light drinking, I advise them to do so. It’s much more difficult to predict among risk or benefit for younger healthy people. I believe in advising people about alcohol on a one-on-one basis. It’s very difficult for governments or public health officials to make broad, sweeping statements about alcohol consumption that apply to everyone.” However, Dr. Klatsky concurs with the federal government’s recommendation that moderate drinking means no more than one drink per day for women (12g) and no more than two drinks per day for men. 

Professor. R. Curtis Ellison, who helped uncover the French Paradox, says of Klatsky “Arthur Klatsky has probably done more than any other scientist to advance our knowledge about the health effects of moderate alcohol consumption. His background in cardiology made him appreciate the striking reduction in coronary heart disease he observed in moderate alcohol consumers. He was appropriately cautious in interpreting his data but has persisted in presenting it clearly and consistently over the years to the scientific community.”

“No one should drink as a primary way to protect themselves against heart disease,” Klatsky maintains. “To avoid heart disease: Stay thin, don’t smoke, exercise, maintain a low fat diet, control any problems with high blood pressure and diabetes, and — maybe drink moderately —but as part of a whole constellation of healthful habits.” Klatskyruns four miles at least four days a week and until recently, when his knees began to protest, ran marathons. He also hedges his bets by having wine with dinner nearly every night.

Despite his own drinking habits, Klatsky does not believe that the fruit of the vine is a magic potion with superior health benefits. He speculates that wine comes out looking better in some studies, including several of his own, for two main reasons. His own published research data on Kaiser enrollees reveals that wine drinkers are a more health-conscious lot to begin with. The Californian wine drinkers tended to exercise more, smoke less and were leaner than their beer- and spirits-drinking or abstaining counterparts. Whether the wine was red or white made no difference.

“Wine drinkers tend to be more educated yuppie types with more regular habits and many things going in their favor. Wine drinkers also tend to have only a glass or two with dinner” he says. Klatsky points out that the Honolulu Heart Study and the Munich Heart Study found beer to be quite protective. “The fact is people usually don’t drink brandy or Scotch with their meals. Nothing would please me more than if wine were ound to be the most protective, but right now I’d say if someone likes beer they shouldn’t switch to wine for health reasons. The pattern of drinking may turn out be one of the most important factors, and it’s very hard to study people’s habits…There’s a general tendency by many persons to assume that everything we like is bad for us. I am pleased by the fact that we found out that something people like is actually good for them.”