A review of the association between occasional and moderate alcohol consumption and cardiovascular disease

Abstract

Objective: The review aims to evaluate associations of occasional and moderate drinking with cardiovascular diseases (CVD), specifically to compare results for occasional and moderate drinking, as moderate drinking is widely investigated while occasional drinking is relatively understudied and can potentially inform whether alcohol is causally related to CVD. Methods: A systematic review was conducted by searching for observational and interventional studies from three databases (ScienceDirect, Ebscohost, and PubMed) for alcohol consumption and its association with cardiovascular health. Online internet sources were also used for more supplementary research in this literature review. Patient-oriented outcomes, primarily on heart diseases, including cardiovascular heart disease, myocardial infarction, and coronary heart disease, were extracted from all study groups. Results: Fifteen studies were included, most of which were conducted in the United States of America (9 studies). Generally, moderate alcohol consumption is associated with a reduction in CVD risks, including extensive coronary calcification, sudden cardiac death, congestive heart failure, acute coronary syndrome, ischemic heart disease. Studies also suggests that alcohol may be associated with better endothelial function and lower systolic blood pressure Current occasional alcohol use is found to be associated lower IHD mortality in men, but is not related to IHD mortality in women. Conclusion: We found consistent evidence of protective association of moderate alcohol consumption against cardio-mortality and CVD, while occasional alcohol consumption has relatively less protection against CHD deaths. Such associations were only found in studies with living controls. Only a small number of studies have studied occasional drinking, in relation to cardiovascular health. Further studies that specifically examine occasional drinking, are needed. If the biological effects of occasional drinking towards CVD are limited, then occasional drinking may indicate the magnitude of residual and unobserved confounding in the association with cardiovascular health. This will in turn inform alcohol-related policies such as alcohol duties and minimum alcohol pricing.