A drink a day may keep the cardiologist away...!

A drink a day may keep the cardiologist away....!

28 February 2011

 Findings from two meta-analyses suggest that individuals who consume one alcoholic drink a day may have a lower risk for heart disease than teetotallers.

In the first of two studies published in the BMJ, William Ghali (University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada) and team pooled results from 84 studies that investigated cardiovascular (CV) disease and alcohol consumption.

In doing so, they found that people consuming between 2.5 and 14.9 grams of alcohol per day had a 17% lower all-cause mortality risk compared with nondrinkers (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.80–0.86).

But those drinking more than 60 grams of alcohol per day had a 30% higher risk for all-cause mortality than nondrinkers (CI: 1.22–1.38).

This “J-shaped” association was also observed between stroke risk and alcohol consumption, say Ghali and team.

The second study, a 63-study meta-analysis led by Susan Brien, also from the University of Calgary, demonstrated an association between alcohol consumption and favorable changes in CV markers, namely increased high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and adiponectin levels, and reduced fibrinogen levels.

In this study, Brien et al compared participants’ biomarker levels after a 3 week to 3 month period of alcohol abstinence and after an equivalent time period of daily alcohol consumption (beer, wine, or spirits; 12–90 g/day).

Brien and colleagues found that after regular alcohol consumption, HDL cholesterol and adinopectin levels rose by a pooled mean of 0.09 mmol/l and 0.56 mg/l, respectively, and fibrinogen levels decreased by a pooled mean of 0.20 g/l, compared with nonconsumption.

This finding was irrespective of the type of alcoholic drink consumed.

Ghali and colleagues conclude that “there may now be an impetus to better communicate to the public that alcohol, in moderation, may have overall health benefits that outweigh the risks in selected subsets of patients.

“Any such strategy would need to be accompanied by rigorous study and oversight impacts.”