Alcohol Consumption and Risk of Coronary Artery Disease (from the Million Veteran Program)
Moderate alcohol consumption has been associated with a lower risk of coronary artery disease (CAD) in the general population but has not been well studied in US veterans. We obtained self-reported alcohol consumption from Million Veteran Program participants. Using electronic health records, CAD events were defined as 1 inpatient or 2 outpatient diagnosis codes for CAD, or 1 code for a coronary procedure. We excluded participants with prevalent CAD (n = 69,995) or incomplete alcohol information (n = 8,449). We used a Cox proportional hazards model to estimate hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals for CAD, adjusting for age, gender, body mass index, race, smoking, education, and exercise. Among 156,728 participants, the mean age was 65.3 years (standard deviation = 12.1) and 91% were men. There were 6,153 CAD events during a mean follow-up of 2.9 years. Adjusted hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) for CAD were 1.00 (reference), 1.02 (0.92 to 1.13), 0.83 (0.74 to 0.93), 0.77 (0.67 to 0.87), 0.71 (0.62 to 0.81), 0.62 (0.51 to 0.76), 0.58 (0.46 to 0.74), and 0.95 (0.85 to 1.06) for categories of never drinker; former drinker; current drinkers of 0.5 to 1 drink/day, >1 to 2 drinks/day, >2 to 3 drinks/day, and >3 to 4 drinks/day; and heavy drinkers (>4 drinks/day) or alcohol use disorder, respectively. For a fixed amount of ethanol, intake at >/=3 days/week was associated with lower CAD risk compared with </=1 day/week. Beverage preference (beer, wine, or liquor) did not influence the alcohol-CAD relation. Our data show a lower risk of CAD with light-to-moderate alcohol consumption among US veterans, and drinking frequency may provide a further reduction in risk.
Additional Info
-
Authors
O'Donnell C.J.; Song R.J.; Nguyen X.T.; Quaden R.; Ho Y.L.; Justice A.C.; Gagnon D.R.; Cho K.; Concato J.; Gaziano J.M.; Djousse L. -
Issue
Am.J Cardiol. / pages 1162-1168 / volume 121 -
Published Date
15 may 2018
Related items
- Red Wine Consumption and the Impact on Cardiovascular Health: The Methodological Barriers of Observational Study Design
- Alcohol and Atrial Fibrillation: An Update and New Perspectives
- Red Wine Consumption and the Impact on Cardiovascular Health: The Methodological Barriers of Observational Study Design
- Alcohol Consumption and Cardiovascular Disease: A Narrative Review of Evolving Perspectives and Long-Term Implications
- Lifestyle risk behavior and atherosclerotic cardiovascular risk: An analysis using the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey