­Moderate Alcohol Consumption May Prevent Heart Disease

Light-to-moderate alcohol consumption can reduce the risk of heart failure and heart attacks, according to 2 recent studies.

The most recent study, published in January 2016, examines alcohol’s affect on heart failure, and the previous study, published in September 2015 by the same lead author, investigates alcohol’s effect on heart attack risk.
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Researchers conducted their most recent study to examine the occurrence of heart failure events in patients without the disease who usually don’t drink or drink rarely.

To conduct their study, researchers administered questionnaires to 60,665 patients participating in the HUNT study from 1995 to 1997.

After drinking an average of 2.95 grams of alcohol per day for about 11 years, 1588 patients had developed heart failure. Participants who drank between 3 and 6 drinks per week were least likely to develop heart failure.

“Frequent light-to-moderate alcohol consumption without problem drinking was associated with a lower heart failure risk in this population characterized by a low average alcohol intake,” researchers concluded.1

For their previous study, researchers wanted to confirm previous findings that light-to-moderate alcohol consumption could reduce heart attack risk, focusing on whether alcohol consumption history was a factor.

To conduct their study, researchers analyzed data from 58,827 adults participating in the HUNT study from 1995-1997. Participants completed questionnaires that gauged quantity and frequency of alcohol intake, and researchers investigated participants’ prior 10-year history of alcohol intake.

After a median 12-year follow-up, 2966 participants experienced a heart attack. Results showed that with each additional standard serving drink consumed, participants lowered their heart attack risk by 28%.

“Light-to-moderate alcohol consumption was linearly associated with a decreased risk of acute myocardial infarction in a population in which abstaining from alcohol is not socially stigmatized,” researchers concluded. “Our results suggest that frequent alcohol consumption is most cardioprotective and that this association is not driven by misclassification of former drinkers.”2

—Amanda Balbi

Reference:

  1. Gémes K, Janszky I, Ahnve S, et al. Light-to-moderate drinking and incident heart failure—the Norwegian HUNT study. Int J Cardiol. 2016;203:553-560. doi: dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcard.2015.10.179.
  2. Gémes K, Janszky I, Laugsand LE, et al. Alcohol consumption is associated with a lower incidence of acute myocardial infarction: results from a large prospective population-based study in Norway. J Int Med. Published online September 14, 2015. doi:10.1111/joim.12428.