MedWire News: People who begin drinking moderate amounts of alcohol in middle age have lower rates of cardiovascular disease morbidity than nondrinkers who continue to abstain from drinking alcohol, findings from the ARIC study show.
"Moderate alcohol use is part of a healthy lifestyle, yet current guidelines caution nondrinkers against starting to drink alcohol in middle age," note Dana King (University of South Carolina, Charleston, USA) and colleagues in the American Journal of Medicine.
This is partly because the benefit of adopting moderate alcohol consumption in middle age is not well characterized. To examine the impact of initiating moderate drinking in middle age on subsequent cardiovascular disease further, the researchers analyzed 7967 participants in the ARIC (Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities) study who were nondrinkers and had no history of cardiovascular disease at baseline.
Over the 6-year follow-up period, 6.0% of these participants took up drinking alcohol moderately, defined as two or fewer drinks per day for men or one drink or less per day for women, while 0.4% started heavier drinking.
The new moderate drinkers were 38% less likely than nondrinkers to have a cardiovascular event by 4 years of follow-up. The reduction in relative risk for a cardiovascular event was unchanged after adjustment for demographic and cardiovascular risk factors.
Further analysis showed that the reduction in risk was greater among those new moderate drinkers who drank wine only. This group was 68% less likely to have a cardiovascular event over 4 years than nondrinkers, compared with a nonsignificant 31% risk reduction among those who consumed moderate amounts of a mixture of beer, liquor, and wine.
In contrast, heavy alcohol drinkers were not significantly more or less likely than nondrinkers to suffer a cardiovascular event in both unadjusted and adjusted analyses.
There was no difference in all-cause mortality between new drinkers and persistent non-drinkers, the authors report.
King and team note that, in contrast to another recent study, participants consuming moderate levels of alcohol had no increase in their blood pressure levels.
The team concludes: "People who newly begin consuming alcohol in middle age rarely do so beyond recommended amounts. Those who begin drinking moderately experience a relatively prompt benefit of lower rates of cardiovascular disease morbidity with no change in mortality rates at 4 years."
Free abstract
