Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Gee, I Could've Had A V8! Or At Least A Stiff Drink

When I was growing up (not that I"m not still attempting to do so), I watched variation upon variation of the V8 vegetable juice commercial in which someone drinks a non-V8 beverage and then slaps his forehead and makes the memorable disclaimer.

I bring this up because an analysis of the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS) was published early online last month in the European Heart Journal concluding that moderate alcohol consumption was linked to lower all-cause & cardiovascular mortality among men who had survived their first heart attack.  The relationship was U-shaped suggesting that no alcohol might be just as bad as excess alcohol consumption.  At the very least, I can imagine the tee-totalers slapping their collective foreheads now that this study is out.

As an extension of yesterday's post, recall that HPFS is a prospective cohort (read observational) study of 51,529 men followed for 20 years during which 1,818 had their first heart attack.  Alcohol consumption was assessed by validated questionnaire every 4 years.  After the usual statistical manipulations, the authors noted that consuming anywhere from 0.1-9.9g/day of alcohol as associated w/22% relative risk reduction in all-cause mortality compared to not consuming any alcohol at all.  Those who consumed 10-29.9g/d could look forward to 34% relative risk reduction while those who consumed 30g/d or more only received 13% relative risk reduction compared to the teetotalers.  Bear in mind that a beer was estimated to have 12.8g alcohol, a glass of wine 11g, and a shot of liquor 14g.

For what it's worth, I noted that smoking appeared to be linked to increase in alcohol consumption.  Regardless, 4 out of 5 men were married, average body mass index as overweight at 26+kg/m2, 2 out of 5 had hypertension, 1 in 2 used aspirin, and 1 in 6 used a lipid lowering agent.  One final point: before you attempt to apply the results of a study, ask yourself how similar are you to the trial participants.  While I could not find age & race details, other articles & analyses have pointed out that most of the men were/are Caucasian who were 40-75yo back in 1986.  So if the demographics fit you and you've survived your first heart attack, think about having that V8 (or glass of wine daily).



Health
Top Blogs

No comments:

Post a Comment