Mild Alcohol Drinking is Good for Heart Health: The Saying is Not True

Research has suggested that mild drinking of alcohol will improve heart-related health benefits. But according to a recent study that has been done in a larger scale suggested, drinking alcohol at all levels has been linked to higher risks of cardiovascular diseases. This study has been published in the journal JAMA Network Open.Findings, from a team led by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Broad Institute MIT suggest and the Harvard, suggested that the benefits of alcohol drinking may actually be due to other lifestyle factors that are common among mild to moderate drinkers of alcohol.

This study included 371,463 adults — with an average age of 57 years and an average alcohol consumption of 9.2 drinks per week — who were participants in the UK Biobank. According to previous studies, investigators found that mild and moderate drinkers had a lower risk of heart disease, followed by people who did not drink alcohol. Those who drink too much are at higher risk. However, the team also found that mild and moderate drinkers had a healthier lifestyle than those with high physical activity and vegetable intake and less smoking. Taking into account a few lifestyle factors can significantly reduce any of the benefits of drinking alcohol.

A new method called "Mendelian randomization," which uses genetic variants to find a link between an exposure and an outcome is consistent with the fact that mild alcohol consumption leads to the protection against cardiovascular disease, was applied to this study.

“Newer and more advanced techniques in ‘non-linear Mendelian randomization’ now permit the use of human genetic data to evaluate the direction and magnitude of disease risk associated with different levels of an exposure,” says senior author Krishna G. Aragam, MD, MS, a cardiologist at MGH and an associate scientist at the Broad Institute. “We therefore leveraged these new techniques and expansive genetic and phenotypic data from biobank populations to better understand the association between habitual alcohol intake and cardiovascular disease.”

When scientists conducted genetic analyses of samples taken from participants, individuals with genetic variants that predict high alcohol consumption were actually more likely to have high blood pressure and coronary artery disease. The analyses revealed substantial differences in cardiovascular disease across the alcohol drinking spectrum between men and women, with a minimal increase in risk when going from 0 to 7 drinks per week, and an increased risk when progressing to 7 to 14 drinks per week. Especially high risk when consuming 21 or more drinks per week. The findings suggest that the risk of cardiovascular disease increases even in what is considered a "low risk" according to the National Guidelines of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (i.e., 2 drinks a day for men and less than 1 drink a day for women).

Further analysis of the data of 30,716 participants in the Mass General Brigham Biobank has shown that the relationship between alcohol drinking and cardiovascular disease was exponential and not linear. Therefore, while reducing consumption may also benefit those who drink 1 drink a day, the health benefits of reducing it may be substantial – and may be clinically meaningful for those who consume more.

“The findings affirm that alcohol intake should not be recommended to improve cardiovascular health; rather, that reducing alcohol intake will likely reduce cardiovascular risk in all individuals, albeit to different extents based on one’s current level of consumption,” says Aragam.

This study’s lead author was Kiran J. Biddinger, and additional authors included Connor A. Emdin, MD, DPhil, Mary E. Haas, PhD, Minxian Wang, PhD, George Hindy, MD, Patrick T. Ellinor, MD, PhD, Sekar Kathiresan, MD, and Amit V. Khera, MD, MSc.

This study has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association.

Source-Medindia