Cardiovascular Health and Lifestyle Medicine🌿part 4 - Alcohol🍷 (3mins read)

 

Alcohol consumption 🍻 has been practiced for thousands of years and has in many ways been successfully integrated into society by advertising, social pressure 🍹, and entertainment. It is often seen as a desirable activity in social and business contacts. But what is the effect that it can have on developing cardiovascular disease? Moderate drinking is considered to be one standard drink for women and two for men. Even moderate drinking before sleep can affect the quality of sleep, especially deep sleep 😴 quality.  It can interfere with the rhythm of deep and Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep (up to 9%, heavy drinking up to 25% and binge drinking up to 40%). There is also a significant risk (dose and time dependent) on the reduction in sleep quality and time. This can then lead to further risk of coronary heart disease.

One of the clearest outcomes of the evidence demonstrates a significant risk of Hypertension. (HTN). This places a larger strain on the tissues that make up the blood vessels and exposes them to damage. This in turn can lead to Aneurysm formation (weakening and ballooning of the blood vessel walls in both arteries and veins). It also increases the risk of stroke, where a clot formation blocks supply to cardiovascular tissues or other body tissues and leads to tissue death. It can be associated with heart failure and blood clotting disorders. However, moderate drinking does not increase HTN risk. 

Excessive alcohol consumption 🍸 can lead to a risk of developing Atrial fibrillation (AF), which is a disorder involving changes in heart rhythm and electrical activity in the heart. This can lead to either minor AF, or AF that becomes a threat to life, especially relating to its link with the danger of stroke while in AF, in some cases. 

Heavy alcohol 🥂 use has been associated with a higher risk of cardiomyopathy (a disease of the heart muscle). 

It may contribute to sleep apnoea (SA) from relaxation of Throat muscles causing more strain on our breathing.  Many Sleeping 💤disorders are directly associated to higher risk of Cardiovascular Disease CVD. SA episodes are more common in the presence of alcohol consumption. What is generally unknown is that even one standard drink a day can lead to temporal memory loss, and up to 50% loss of newly learnt information within days to weeks. 

It is important to discuss alcohol 🍺 and its effect on mental health 🫠, more often in heavy and binge drinking. These forms of alcohol use disorder (AUD) may exhibit additional stress, anxiety or depression. Alcohol misuse has a greater prevalence in people where there is a history of another family member abusing alcohol, smokers, psychiatric patients, patients experiencing trauma, and higher income earners. There is also a higher prevalence of AUD in ages between 18 and 34. 

The number of people seeking appropriate treatment for alcohol misuse is approximately 10%, which means that the health consequences of excessive alcohol consumption are not very often addressed. This makes Lifestyle medicine🌿 intervention a very important direction, as the prevention of cardiovascular disease should always include responsible drinking. Because alcohol is both physically and mentally addictive, it makes the habit particularly hard to address, especially with the amount of public acceptance of its “social lubricant” reputation. 

Inactivity is another risk factor that can be directly associated with excessive alcohol 🥃 use. People often complain of lack of volition and motivation to remain physically active when drinking excessively. This can also lead to loss of inhibition regarding food choices and lead to excessive take away and processed food consumption, and the risk of dehydration. All of these nutrition deviations can impact on our risk of cardiovascular disease, including the fact that alcohol has no nutrition but is highly calorific, and increases in weight are common for this reason. Obesity can also cause higher levels of cardiovascular disease risk. 

In summary, there are many effects that alcohol 🍾 can have that lead to a higher risk of CVD. It is therefore important that we view alcohol use to not exceed recommended daily levels, but to remember that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption.  Moderate use is recommended, but complete abstinence would be even better.