NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who have an alcoholic drink or two a day may have a lower risk of becoming obese than either teetotalers or heavy drinkers, a new study suggests. Researchers found that among more than 8,200 U.S. adults, those who said they enjoyed a drink every day were 54 percent less likely than nondrinkers to be obese. Similarly, those who drank a little more (two drinks per day) or a little less (a few drinks per week) had a lower risk of obesity than teetotalers.

Heavy drinking, on the other hand, raised the odds of obesity. People who downed four or more drinks a day were 46 percent more likely to be obese than nondrinkers. Binge drinkers also showed a greater prevalence of obesity.

Many studies have linked moderate drinking to better heart health, but only a few have looked at the relationship between drinking and body weight. “It’s a fairly new line of research,” said study co-author James E. Rohrer, a professor of health services research at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. It’s possible, he told Reuters Health, that the lower prevalence of obesity among moderate drinkers helps explain the lower risk of heart disease.

However, Rohrer stressed that the findings do not imply that overweight people should take up drinking for the sake of their waistlines. Alcohol is high in calories, and it is not yet clear why moderate drinking is related to lesser odds of obesity. Given that, Rohrer said, drinking should not be viewed as a “weight-loss strategy.”

The study findings are based on data from a national health survey of Americans age 18 and older, conducted between 1988 and 1994. The researchers focused their analysis on 8,236 participants who had never smoked.

Overall, half of current drinkers were in the normal weight range, versus only about one-quarter of nondrinkers. Why this is so is unclear, but, Rohrer noted, he and colleague Dr. Ahmed Arif factored in the “usual suspects” in heart disease risk -- such as age, exercise levels, education and income -- and moderate drinking was still related to lower odds of obesity.

Though he cautioned against taking up drinking to trim the waistline, Rohrer also said the findings suggest that completely cutting out alcohol might backfire as a weight-loss plan.