Casual alcohol consumption is associated with less subclinical cardiovascular organ damage in Koreans: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

BackgroundEpidemiologic studies have presented protective effects of alcohol against cardiovascular (CV) events. However, such studies were performed mainly on Westerners. We investigated the effects of alcohol on the subclinical CV morbidity in healthy Koreans.MethodsThe coronary artery calcium (CAC) score, ankle-brachial pulse wave velocity (abPWV), and carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT) of 1004 subjects (age, years±standard deviation [SD] 53 ± 10; 72% were men) with no CV disease history were assessed. The subjects were divided into three groups based on their drinking patterns: Group 0 (abstainers), Group 1 (casual drinkers), and Group 2 (problematic drinkers; > 14 standard drinking/week for men, > 7 standard drinking/week for women). As drinking patterns can be influenced by age/sex, a regression analysis was performed in another four groups (men/women, age < 65/≥65 years).ResultsGroup 1 exhibited lower CAC (score ± SD, 44 ± 155 vs. 13 ± 48 vs. 50 ± 159) and abPWV (cm/s ± SD, 1448 ± 284 vs. 1340 ± 190 vs. 1447 ± 245) scores and thinner cIMT (mm ± SD, 0.64 ± 0.14 vs. 0.59 ± 0.11 vs. 0.63 ± 0.13) than Groups 0 and 2 (p < 0.05 for all). Problematic drinking (odds ratio [OR]: 2.269; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.454–3.541) was associated with a high prevalence of CAC deposits among men aged < 65 years and casual drinking with a lower prevalence of CAC deposits (OR: 0.057; 95% CI: 0.023–0.140) among men aged ≥65 years. Conversely, problematic drinking in older women [OR: 0.117; 95% CI: 0.014–0.943) and casual drinking in younger women (OR: 0.349; 95% CI: 0.153–0.792) were associated with a lower prevalence of CAC deposits. Casual drinking was associated with a lower abPWV and thinner cIMT in the diabetes mellitus/hypertension-adjusted regression analysis.ConclusionsCompared with abstinence or problematic drinking, casual drinking was associated with less severe CV organ damage in the subclinical stages in Koreans.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-018-6000-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Alcohol consumption in relation to carotid subclinical atherosclerosis and its progression: results from a European longitudinal multicentre study

“…1 a, b Dose-response relationships between alcohol consumption and each of the considered measurements of C-IMT (p50) at baseline (a) and progression (b). Solid lines: Restricted cubic splines adjusted for sex, age, physical activity, smoking, diet, and latitude, with knots located at fixed points of g/d of alcohol consumption (4,10,20,30). Dashed lines: 95% CI.…”

“…Findings from epidemiological studies investigating the association between alcohol consumption and C-IMT have shown inconsistent results: some found a protective effect of moderate alcohol consumptions [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20], others suggested that alcohol is always a risk factor [21][22][23][24][25][26], and yet others showed no association [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35]. Some of the studies have described the relationship between alcohol consumption and atherosclerosis as linear, with either increased [22,25] or decreased C-IMT [13,16] associated with a rise in alcohol consumption, whereas others report a J-shaped association, with a decrease of C-IMT with moderate alcohol consumption and an increase of C-IMT with high alcohol consumption [9,14,15,17].…”

Association between Alcohol Intake and Arterial Stiffness in Healthy Adults: A Systematic Review

“…Among environmental factors, dietary compounds were explored only to a limited extent, and most previous studies have been focused on exploring the role of salt consumption on PWV increase [ 11 , 12 ]. Nevertheless, beverages represent a consistent part of daily diet; alcohol is one of the most consumed—as well as abused—beverages worldwide, and it is in turn considered as a factor influencing arterial stiffness [ 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ].…”

Association between height and lipid profile among Korean men: results from the 10-year Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

“…5 Regarding alcohol consumption, patients were considered ‘problem drinkers’ if they consumed more than 14 standard drinks a week. 6 Economic status was assessed by family size-adjusted mean monthly household income calculated by dividing household income by the square root of the number of persons in the household. We defined the lowest quartile as ‘low income level’.…”