Alcohol and Its Effect on Coronary Heart Disease and Stroke

An analysis of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in a cohort within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition was used to study the effects of alcohol consumption on non-fatal and fatal coronary heart diseases (CHD) and strokes.

CHD was defined by occurrence of myocardial infarction, or angina, and stroke types included were ischemic, hemorrhagic, and unclassified. CVD occurrences from 32,549 participants were considered alongside their self-reported alcohol consumption to show that alcohol (12g/day or higher) had an inverse correlation with the 9,307 non-fatal CHD events, yielding a hazard ratio of 0.94 (95% CI 0.92 to 0.96).

Contrasting these results, a positive correlation was found between alcohol consumption and risk of stroke in both the 5,855 participants with non-fatal strokes, and the 733 participants with fatal strokes. The hazard ratios of these groups were 1.04 (1.02 to 1.07), and 1.05 (0.98 to 1.13) per 12g increase of alcohol intake a day, respectively. This evidence portrays the varying effects of alcohol on different types of CVD, and yields support for reduction in alcohol consumption in preventing CVD.

Source: BMJ