Alcohol and Heart Failure

[New Petchburi Pete]

I thought this would be of interest ... from "Cardiosource," the online journal of The American College of Cardiology. Please note that I only recommend the consumption of alcohol when it's use is honestly discussed with one's personal or primary care physician.

 

The Association of Alcohol Consumption and Incident Heart Failure

 

The Cardiovascular Health Study

Chris L. Bryson, MD, MS*, , Kenneth J. Mukamal, MD, MPH, MA ,*, Murray A. Mittleman, DrPH, MD , Linda P. Fried, MD, MPH , Calvin H. Hirsch, MD||, Dalane W. Kitzman, MD and David S. Siscovick, MD, MPH*

* Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington

VA Puget Sound HSR&D, Seattle, Washington

Department of Medicine, Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts

Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, Maryland

|| Division of Internal Medicine, UC Davis, Davis, California

Department of Internal Medicine, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Manuscript accepted February 17, 2006.

* Reprint requests and correspondence: Dr. Kenneth J. Mukamal, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02215.

 

OBJECTIVES: We investigated the association between alcohol consumption and incident congestive heart failure (CHF) both overall and after adjusting for incident myocardial infarction (MI).

 

BACKGROUND: Moderate alcohol consumption has been associated with lower risk of CHF and MI.

 

METHODS: The Cardiovascular Health study, a prospective cohort study of cardiovascular disease risk factors and outcomes, followed 5,888 subjects 65 years old for 7 to 10 years. Cox models were used to estimate the adjusted risk of CHF by reported alcohol consumption.

 

RESULTS: There were 5,595 subjects at baseline at risk for incident CHF with alcohol data and 1,056 events during follow-up. Compared with abstainers, the adjusted risk of CHF was lower among subjects who reported consuming 1 to 6 drinks per week (hazard ratio

---

0.82, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.67 to 1.00, p = 0.05) and 7 to 13 drinks per week (HR 0.66, 95% CI 0.47 to 0.91, p = 0.01). Time-dependent adjustment for incident MI altered only slightly the association between moderate alcohol consumption and CHF (for 1 to 6 drinks per week, HR 0.84, 95% CI 0.65 to 1.04; for 7 to 13 drinks per week, HR 0.69, 95% CI 0.49 to 0.99). Baseline former drinkers had a higher risk of CHF than abstainers (HR 1.51, p < 0.01), but those who quit during the study did not have a higher risk (HR 0.83, 95% CI 0.66 to 1.03).

 

CONCLUSIONS: Moderate alcohol use is associated with a lower risk of incident CHF among older adults, even after accounting for incident MI and other factors.

 

Abbreviations and Acronyms

CHF = congestive heart failure

CHS = Cardiovascular Health Study

CI = confidence interval

ECG = electrocardiogram

HR = hazard ratio

LV = left ventricle/ventricular

MI = myocardial infarction

 

 

[Julian2]

A very old man is being interviewed by the local newspaper. Proudly he says "I've never drank a drop of alcohol in my life. I've never smoked a cigarette and I've never had sex and today I celebrate my 100th birthday"

The reporter says "How?"

[cavanami]

...and his answer was???

[Zorro]

He celebrated by reading the obituaries and seeing who he had outlived. Sad stuff indeed.

[New Petchburi Pete]

On this topic, I wanted to add some additional information I just reviewed from an Online Journal ... "Health Centers Online - Newswire"

__________________________________________________

 

Light drinking protects heart in new way

 

Jul 27 (HealthCentersOnline) - Light to moderate alcohol consumption appears to be effective at protecting the heart, even when the anti-inflammatory effects normally associated with alcohol are not present.

While alcohol is often not thought of as a drug, it can act on the body as both a stimulant and a depressive. Moderate alcohol consumption has been proven to have heart-health benefits, though numerous studies have also shown that excess alcohol makes the heart work harder.

Previous research had suggested that the healthy benefits of moderate alcohol consumption were achieved because of the anti-inflammatory effects of alcohol, which lower heart disease. However, researchers from the University of Florida have demonstrated in a recent study that alcohol appears to offer positive heart effects independent of any anti-inflammatory response.

Heart disease refers to several types of damage or defects that affect the pumping ability of the heart. Heart disease usually involves reduced blood flow to the heart, which greatly increases the risk of a heart attack or stroke.

The researchers in this latest study included 2,487 adult men and women without heart disease age 70 to 79. When they were recruited for the study in 1997 and 1998, these participants all answered a list of questions about disease diagnoses, medication use and drinking habits. Researchers then classified the participants based on how many drinks they had consumed in a typical week over the previous year.

The study showed that over the 5.6 years of the study, participants with light to moderate drinking (1 to 7 drinks per week) had a 26 percent lower risk of dying and a 30 percent less chance of having cardiovascular event than those participants who drank never or occasionally (less than 1 drink per week). These results were achieved by screening out any individuals who were affected by inflammatory markers.

Those participants who were classified as heavy drinkers had a greater chance of dying or having a cardiovascular event than both groups who drank occasionally or never.

While the authors of the study do not understand why moderate alcohol consumption appears to have protective qualities aside from its anti-inflammatory properties, they speculate that alcohol may offer protection on a cellular or molecular level, or may even interact with genetic factors.

"The net benefit of light to moderate alcohol consumption may vary as a function of sex, race and background cardiovascular risk," the study authors explained in a recent press release. "From this point of view, recommendations on alcohol consumption should be based, as any medical advice, on a careful evaluation of an individual's risks and benefits, in the context of adequate treatment and control of established cardiovascular risk factors."

The results of the study were published in the July 24 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

 

Copyright 2000-2006 HealthCentersOnline, Inc. Publish Date: July 27, 2006