Here’s ANOTHER reason to do Dry January… and it could save your life
ALCOHOL is as bad for your heart as obesity and smoking with heavy drinkers more than twice as likely to suffer heart failure, according to a new study.
Despite advances in prevention and treatment of heart disease, it still remains the number one killer both in the UK and worldwide.
Researchers at the American College of Cardiology analysed data from patients aged 21 or older that received same-day surgery, emergency or inpatient medical care in California between 2005 and 2009.
Among 14.7 million patients, 1.8 per cent, or 268,000, had been diagnosed with alcohol abuse.
Further research found that, after taking into account other risk factors, alcohol abuse was associated with a twofold increased risk of atrial fibrillation, an irregular or abnormal heartbeat.
It was also associated with a 1.4-fold increased risk of heart attack and a 2.3-fold increased risk of congestive heart failure, meaning the heart is unable to sufficiently pump blood.
The increase in risk was similar to those who have well-recognised risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity.
But completely eradicating alcohol 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 United States alone, the researchers said.
Although the study did not examine how much patients drank to increase their risk of heart disease.
Lead researcher, Dr Gregory Marcus, director of clinical research in the Division of Cardiology at the University of California, San Francisco, said: "We found that even if you have no underlying risk factors, abuse of alcohol still increases the risk of these heart conditions.
"We were somewhat surprised to find those diagnosed with some form of alcohol abuse were at significantly higher risk of a heart attack.
"We hope this data will temper the enthusiasm for drinking in excess and will avoid any justification for excessive drinking because people think it will be good for their heart. This data pretty clearly proves the opposite."
Previous research has suggested that moderate levels of alcohol consumption may help prevent heart attack and congestive heart failure, while even low to moderate levels of alcohol consumption have been shown to increase the incidence of atrial fibrillation.
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Dr Marcus added: "The great majority of previous research relied exclusively on self-reports of alcohol abuse.
"That can be an unreliable measure, especially in those who drink heavily.
"In our study, alcohol abuse was documented in patients' medical records."
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