Alcohol consumption and risk of heart failure: a meta-analysis.
BACKGROUND
Heart failure is highly prevalent among older adults and is associated with high treatment costs. Identifying modifiable determinants of heart failure may help in prevention. Alcohol consumption has emerged as a modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. Although many studies have suggested a positive association between heavy drinking and cardiomyopathy, the association between infrequent or light-to-moderate drinking and heart failure risk has been less conclusive.


OBJECTIVE
To examine the relation between various levels of alcohol intake and incident heart failure.


METHODS
We conducted a meta-analysis of 6 studies obtained through a PubMed literature search. Alcohol drinkers were classified as never, former, and current drinkers of 0.1 to 0.9, 1 to 7, 8 to 14, and > 14 drinks per week.


RESULTS
Compared with never drinkers, the pooled relative risks were 1.16 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.90-1.51) for former drinkers, 0.90 (95% CI, 0.83-0.98), 0.80 (95% CI, 0.73-0.88), 0.78 (95% CI, 0.65-0.95), and 0.77 (95% CI, 0.63-0.95) for current drinkers of 0.1 to 0.9, 1 to 7, 8 to 14, and > 14 drinks per week, respectively, in a random effects model.


CONCLUSIONS
These data suggest that infrequent and light-to-moderate drinking is associated with a lower risk of heart failure.
Division of Aging, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA 02120, USA. hpadilla02@gmail.com
Heather
H
Padilla
J
J
Michael Gaziano
Luc
L
Djoussé
D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002310:Cardiomyopathy, Alcoholic / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors