Tag: excessive alcohol consumption

Categories : Cardiovascular DiseaseTags :

Research at Oktoberfest Reveals a Brewing Cardiac Arrhythmia Risk

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Medicine is subjecting the negative effects of alcohol on body and health to ever greater scrutiny – not surprisingly us, as alcohol is one of the strongest cell toxins that exist. In a recent study, doctors at  took mobile ECG monitors along to parties of young people who had one principal aim: to drink and be merry. Yet the science produced by the MunichBREW II study made for sobering reading. It revealed that binge drinking can have a concerning effect on the hearts even of healthy young people in surprisingly many cases, including the development of clinically relevant arrhythmias. The results of the study have just been published in the European Heart Journal.

The team from the Department of Cardiology at LMU University Hospital launched the MunichBREW I study at Munich Oktoberfest in 2015. Back then, the doctors, led by Professor Stefan Brunner and PD Dr Moritz Sinner, studied the connection between excessive alcohol consumption and cardiac arrhythmias – but only through an electrocardiogram (ECG) snapshot.

Now the scientists wanted to gain a more detailed picture, so they set out with their mobile equipment once again. Their destinations were various small parties attended by young adults with a high likelihood “that many of the partygoers would reach breath alcohol concentrations (BAC) of at least 1.2 grams per kilogram,” says Stefan Brunner. These were the participants of the MunichBREW II study – the world’s largest investigation to date of acute alcohol consumption and ECG changes in prolonged ECGs spanning several days.

Hearts out of sync – especially in recovery phase

Overall, the researchers evaluated the data of over 200 partygoers who, with peak blood alcohol values of up to 2.5 grams per kilogram, had imbibed quite a few drinks. The ECG devices monitored their cardiac rhythms for a total of 48 hours, with the researchers distinguishing between the baseline (hour 0), the drinking period (hours 1-5), the recovery period (hours 6-19), and two control periods corresponding to 24 hours after the drinking and recovery periods, respectively. Acute alcohol intake was monitored by BAC measurements during the drinking period. ECGs were analysed for heart rate, heart rate variability, atrial fibrillation, and other types of cardiac arrhythmia. Despite the festive mood of the study participants, the quality of the ECGs was almost universally high throughout.

“Clinically relevant arrhythmias were detected in over five percent of otherwise healthy participants,” explains Moritz Sinner, “and primarily in the recovery phase.” Alcohol intake during the drinking period led to an increasingly rapid pulse of over 100 beats per minute. Alcohol, it would seem, can profoundly affect the autonomous regulatory processes of the heart. “Our study furnishes, from a cardiological perspective, another negative effect of acute excessive alcohol consumption on health,” stresses Brunner. Meanwhile, the long-term harmful effects of alcohol-related cardiac arrhythmias on cardiac health remains a subject for further research.

Source: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Categories : Substance UseTags :

Reminiscing Could be the Key to Drinking Less Alcohol

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Researchers exploring the role memory plays in alcohol consumption believe it could help people reduce their intake. They published their findings in Food Quality and Preference.

Previous work has found people don’t eat as much food when they are reminded of an earlier meal just before tucking in. The latest study, led by the University of Portsmouth, wanted to further investigate the relationship between memory and consumption, but with alcohol instead.

The team carried out a study involving 50 women aged 18 to 46-years-old who were randomly split into two groups: The first group were asked to recall a recent alcohol experience in detail, and the second had to recall a car journey, as a control. Participants were then asked to consume a vodka-based drink, at a rate that felt comfortable to them.

Participants watched a mood-neutral program while drinking to provide a more naturalistic environment and distract them from any suspicion that their rate of consumption was being recorded.

The findings revealed individuals asked to recall a previous drinking episode took longer to consume the alcoholic beverage, which suggests a lower motivation for alcohol. 

Dr Lorenzo Stafford, a multisensory researcher at the University of Portsmouth, said: “Following on from previous work, we think an important part of the observed effect was that individuals in the alcohol memory cue condition had to estimate the number of alcohol calories they consumed.

“Our theory is that females may have had less desire for alcohol because they wish to avoid excess calories, which could also be linked to work showing that females are more likely to change their consumption habits because they are more receptive to the risks alcohol poses to health and weight.” 

Alcohol is one of the most widely consumed drugs with an estimated 2.3 billion global consumers, and is linked to around 5% of all global deaths.

Despite this, it is estimated that more than a quarter (28%) of drinkers consume more than the recommended 14 units a week in England alone.

The study also found that those individuals who drink regularly – categorising them at a high risk – consumed the alcohol faster than those in the low risk group. The authors say this demonstrates that the speed of consumption is a valid measure of alcohol motivation.

In two related studies, Dr Stafford and his colleagues found that strong health warning labels on alcohol products also reduced desire for alcohol and slowed down their drinking rate. While these approaches were more effective than memory cues, they could both offer a potentially useful way to help avoid excess alcohol consumption.

The paper, , recommends further research to help understand the alcohol memory effect in males, especially as males typically consume more alcohol than females and are therefore at a heightened risk. 

Source: University of Portsmouth

Categories : Substance UseTags :

Low Social Status Increases Risk of Health Problems from Alcohol Problems

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People with low income or education levels may benefit from screening for alcohol-related conditions

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Men and women with lower income or education levels are more likely to develop medical conditions related to alcohol abuse compared to similar individuals with a higher socioeconomic status. Alexis Edwards of Virginia Commonwealth University, US, and colleagues report these findings in a new study published March 19th in the open access journal PLOS Medicine.

The World Health Organization estimates that harmful alcohol use accounts for 5.1% of the global burden of disease and injury worldwide, and results in three million deaths each year. Excessive alcohol consumption can also take an economic toll. Previous studies have identified links between a person’s socioeconomic status and alcohol use, but currently it is unclear how an individual’s social class impacts their future risk of acquiring alcohol-related medical conditions, like alcoholic liver disease.

In the new study, researchers used a model that follows people over time to estimate their risk of developing medical conditions from alcohol abuse using two indicators for socioeconomic status: income and education level. The researchers analysed data from more than 2.3 million individuals in a Swedish database to show that both men and women with a lower income or education level were more likely to develop these conditions. The associations held true, even when researchers controlled for other relevant factors, such as marital status, history of psychiatric illness and having a genetic predisposition to abuse alcohol.

The new findings are important for understanding which populations are most likely to suffer from medical conditions resulting from alcohol abuse, and contribute to a growing body of literature on health disparities that stem from socioeconomic factors. The researchers recommend that individuals with lower income or education levels might warrant additional screening by clinicians to evaluate their alcohol consumption and identify related conditions.

The authors add, “Among individuals with an alcohol use disorder, those with lower levels of education or lower incomes are at higher risk for developing an alcohol-related medical condition, such as cirrhosis or alcoholic cardiomyopathy. Additional screening and prevention efforts may be warranted to reduce health disparities.”

Source: PLOS

Categories : Addiction Diet and NutritionTags :

Removing Largest Serving Sizes of Wine Decreases Alcohol Consumption, Study Finds

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When pubs, bars and restaurants in England removed their largest size of wine sold by the glass, consumers drank less alcohol

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Alcohol consumption is the fifth largest contributor to premature death and disease globally. Many cues in physical and economic environments influence alcohol consumption across populations. One proposed intervention to excessive alcohol consumption is reducing the size of servings of alcoholic drinks sold by the glass, but there has been no real-world evidence for the effectiveness of this.

In the new study, researchers asked 21 licensed premises in England to remove from their menus their largest serving of wine by the glass – usually 250mL – for four weeks. The researchers then tracked the total volume of wine, beer and cider sold by each establishment.

Over the course of the four weeks, the total volume of wine sold by the licensed premises decreased by 7.6%, and there was no overall increase in beer and cider sales. There was an increase in the sales of smaller servings of wine by the glass – generally 125mL and 175mL – but no impact on sales of wine by the bottle or beer or cider sales.

“This suggests that this is a promising intervention for decreasing alcohol consumption across populations, which merits consideration as part of alcohol licensing regulations,” the authors say.

Marteau adds, “Removing the largest serving size of wine by the glass in 21 licensed premises reduced the volume of wine sold, in keeping with the wealth of research showing smaller serving sizes reduce how much we eat. This could become a novel intervention to improve population health by reducing how much we drink.”