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After accounting for established risk factors for heart disease such
as smoking, obesity and diabetes, alcohol abuse was associated with
a 40 percent higher risk of heart attack, the study found.
Excessive drinking was also tied to a two-fold greater risk of
atrial fibrillation, or an irregular rapid heartbeat, and a 2.3-fold
increased risk of congestive heart failure, a chronic pumping
disorder.
Even though some previous research has linked an occasional or even
daily drink to better heart health, these findings should put to
rest any notion that drinking more is better for our health, said
senior study author Dr. Gregory Marcus of the University of
California, San Francisco.
“Excessive drinking might be ostensibly `justified’ by some
individuals because of the purported heart benefits,” Marcus said by
email.
“We have shown here that not only does excessive alcohol
substantially increase the risk for atrial fibrillation and heart
failure, but also heart attack, the one phenomenon that previous
data has suggested might be mitigated by moderate alcohol
consumption,” Marcus added.
To assess the connection between alcohol abuse and heart problems,
Marcus and colleagues analyzed data on more than 14.7 million
California adults who had surgery, emergency or inpatient hospital
care from 2005 to 2009.
About 1.8 percent of the people in the study, or approximately
268,000 patients, had been diagnosed with alcohol abuse.
The increased risk of heart attack, atrial fibrillation and
congestive heart failure associated with alcohol abuse in the study
were similar in magnitude to other well-recognized modifiable risk
factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity,
researchers report in the Journal of the American College of
Cardiology.
Completely eradicating alcohol abuse would result in more than
73,000 fewer atrial fibrillation cases, 34,000 fewer heart attacks,
and 91,000 fewer patients with congestive heart failure in the U.S.
alone, the researchers estimated.
The study is observational and doesn’t prove drinking causes heart
problems.
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Another limitation of the study is that the data on patients
diagnosed with alcohol abuse problems didn’t specify how much
individual people drank, the authors note. It’s also possible that
some people in the study were excessive drinkers but not diagnosed
as alcohol abusers in the data, which also limits the ability to
specify the amount of alcohol that may be harmful.
Even so, it’s possible that the current study with its broad
population of hospitalized patients may have identified
alcohol-related heart problems that previous research missed by
focusing on a narrower subset of people, Dr. Michael Criqui, of the
University of California, San Diego, writes in an accompanying
editorial.
Earlier studies may have found drinking protective against heart
attack and other heart problems because they included patients with
a stable, healthier lifestyle, Criqui writes. By contrast, the broad
cross-section of adults in the current study included more sick
people who might not be as health-conscious.
“The most recent evidence casts doubt on whether there are any heart
benefits of light to moderate drinking,” Criqui said by email.
“No randomized clinical trials have been done, and they would be
technically difficult to do on this question,” Criqui added.
“Studies do show benefit to quitting drinking, and the sooner the
better, as over time the damage may be irreversible.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2iwlGVl Journal of the American College of
Cardiology, online January 2, 2017.
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