Alcohol abuse in heart diseases

A study by Whitman et al published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology suggests, that abusing alcohol increases the likelihood of suffering atrial fibrillation, heart attack or congestive heart failure.

The study was based on the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project database of Californians aged 21 and older who had outpatient surgery, emergency room treatment or inpatient hospital care between 2005 and 2009.

 Among 14,727,591 patients, 268,084 (1.8%) had alcohol abuse. After multivariable adjustment, the investigators found that alcohol abusers were twice as likely to have atrial fibrillation; 1.4 times more likely to have a heart attack; and 2.3 times more likely to have congestive heart failure than non alcohol abusers.

The authors concluded that alcohol abuse does increase the risk of atrial fibrillation, myocardial infarction, and congestive heart failure.  Given that about 600,000 Americans have a heart attack every year, and an estimated 3 million have atrial fibrillation and about 5.7 million have heart failure, the authors suggest that efforts to moderate alcohol use might result in significant reduction of these common cardiovascular diseases.