Alcohol consumption and carotid artery structure in Korean adults aged 50 years and older.
BACKGROUND
Epidemiologic studies of the association between alcohol consumption and carotid artery structure have reported conflicting results. We investigated the association between alcohol consumption and carotid atherosclerosis by evaluating the effects of alcohol intake on carotid artery enlargement.


METHODS
The study population consisted of 4302 community-dwelling Koreans (1577 men and 2725 women) aged 50 years and over. All the subjects had participated in the baseline survey of the Dong-gu Study conducted between 2007 and 2008. Daily alcohol consumption was determined by the number and frequency of alcoholic beverages consumed. We measured common carotid artery intima-media thickness (CCA-IMT), common carotid and bulb IMT (CB-IMT), carotid plaques, and the diameter of the common carotid artery (CCA-diameter) using high-resolution B-mode ultrasonography. We used analysis of covariance and multiple logistic regressions to determine the relationship between alcohol consumption and carotid artery parameters.


RESULTS
CCA-IMT and CB-IMT were negatively correlated with alcohol consumption after controlling for cardiovascular risk factors in men (p for linear trend = 0.009 and = 0.038, respectively). The multivariate-adjusted odds ratio (OR) for carotid plaques was significantly higher in men who consumed >40.0 g/d (OR = 1.81, 95% CI = 1.13-2.91), although a significant positive correlation was observed between alcohol consumption and carotid plaques (p for linear trend = 0.027). Neither carotid IMT nor carotid plaques were correlated with alcohol intake in women. Alcohol intake was positively correlated with CCA-diameter adjusted for carotid IMT and plaques in the multivariate-adjusted model in both sexes (p for linear trend <0.001 for men and 0.020 for women).


CONCLUSIONS
The results of our study indicate that alcohol consumption is inversely related to carotid IMT and positively related to carotid plaques in men, but not women. However, alcohol intake is positively associated with CCA-diameter in both men and women. Additional large population-based prospective studies are needed to confirm the effects of alcohol consumption on carotid artery structure.
Department of Preventive Medicine, Chonnam National University Medical School, 5 Hak-1-dong, Dong-gu, Gwangju, South Korea. lyh8275@hanmail.net
Young-Hoon
YH
Lee
Min-Ho
MH
Shin
Sun-Seog
SS
Kweon
Sung-Woo
SW
Choi
Hye-Yeon
HY
Kim
So-Yeon
SY
Ryu
Bok-Hee
BH
Kim
Jung-Ae
JA
Rhee
Jin-Su
JS
Choi
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000453:epidemiology*; D016893:Carotid Stenosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007723:Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016017:Odds Ratio; D012307:Risk Factors; D014463:Ultrasonography