Alcohol consumption ups risk of CVD, all-cause mortality in men

Recent evidence suggests that drinking alcoholic beverages is associated with cardiovascular diseases (CVD), including coronary artery disease (CAD), and all-cause mortality.

This finding stresses the importance of reducing alcohol consumption even among light-to-moderate male drinkers.

A team of investigators explored the causal association of alcohol consumptions with CVDs and all-cause mortality among Chinese males in a prospective cohort study. Overall, 40,386 participants were included, of which 17,676 were genotyped for rs671 variant in the ALDH2 gene.

A Cox proportional hazards model was generated to assess the effects of self-reported alcohol consumption. In addition, the investigators explored the causality, with rs671 as an instrumental variable, using Mendelian randomization (MR).

A total of 2,406 incident CVDs and 3,195 all-cause mortalities occurred during 303,353 person-years of follow-up. Self-reported alcohol consumption showed J-shaped associations with incident CVD and all-cause mortality, with reduced risks for light (≤25 g/d) and moderate intake (25−≤60 g/d).

MR analyses, however, demonstrated a linear association between genetically predicted alcohol consumption and incident CVD (p_trend=0.02), including both CAD (p_trend=0.03) and stroke (p_trend=0.02). Incident CVD across increasing tertiles of genetically predicted alcohol consumption had HRs of 1 (reference), 1.18 (95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.01‒1.38), and 1.22 (95 percent CI, 1.03‒1.46).

When heavy drinkers were excluded, the risk of incident CVD and all-cause mortality rose by 27 percent and 20 percent, respectively, per standard drink increase of genetically predicted alcohol intake.