Study: Consistent moderate drinking tied to lower heart disease risk

Aug. 22 (UPI) — Consistent moderate drinking, compared with unstable alcohol consumption, may be associated with a lower risk of heart disease, according to new research.

Researchers led by University College London and the University of Cambridge compared participants who consistently followed British sensible drinking guidelines over 10 years with those who inconsistently drank in moderation, stopped drinking or reported no drinking.

The findings, which were published in the journal BMC Medicine, revealed a higher risk of coronary heart disease, or CHD, among non-consistent moderate drinkers, although they noticed the effect observed in non-drinkers may be confined to women.

The researchers examined data on 35,132 individuals from six studies — five in Britain and one in France — of self-reported weekly alcohol consumption over 10 years.

They found 4.9 percent developed CHD during the study period, of which 0.9 percent were fatal.

The rate was highest for former drinkers at 6.1 percent, including 1.2 percent were fatal.

Interestingly, it was 3.8 percent among heavy drinkers, including 0.6 percent fatal.

“Given that heavy drinkers are known to be under sampled in population level surveys, interpretation of the absence of effect amongst heavy drinkers in the current study should be done very cautiously, particularly in light of the known wider health impact of heavy alcohol intake levels,” corresponding author Dara O’Neill, from University College London, said in a press release.

The authors noted that unstable drinking patterns reflect wider lifestyle changes, including periods of ill-health or life stress.

“When we split the sample by age, we found that the elevated risk of incident CHD amongst inconsistently moderate drinkers was observed in participants aged over 55, but not those aged below. It may be that the older group experienced lifestyle changes, such as retirement, which are known to co-occur with increases in alcohol intake and that these could have played a role in the differing risk,” O’Neill said.

A single drink serving was a half pint of beer or cider, small glass of wine and a single serving of spirits — containing 8g of ethanol in the British cohorts and 10g of ethanol in the French one.