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HowToPreventHeartDisease.com |
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Would Drinking Benefit Elderly? Light to moderate drinking is supposed to be healthful. Many studies have previously suggested that moderate drinking of alcohol, especially red wine, can reduce the risk of getting heart disease. It is believed that components in red wine like flavonoids and other antioxidants are capable of reducing heart disease risk, though some of these components can also be found in other foods like grapes or red grape juice. A study published in 2002 in the journal ‘Health Reports’ found that women who drank 2 to 9 drinks weekly were less likely to be diagnosed with heart disease or to die from it over the next 4 years, comparing to those who reported lifetime abstinence from alcohol. In another study that was released in 2003 in journal ‘the Annals of Internal Medicine’, people who drank moderately were less likely to have heart failure than those who drank less than 1 drink weekly. But according to a recent study, elderly people might suffer heart damage from even moderate drinking. Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School and other institutions suggested on May 26, 2015 in journal ‘Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging’ that elderly people who increased alcohol intake could have mild alterations in cardiac structure and function. In the study, the researchers surveyed 4,466 old folks with an average age of 76. About half of them said they did not drink at all. About 1,500 said they consumed 1 to 7 drinks per week, 402 said they had 7 to 14 drinks, and 195 said they had more than 14 drinks per week. As defined in the study, one drink is 14 grams of ethanol, or about a 5 ounce of wine, and is a bit more than 12-ounce serving of beer or just under an ounce-and-a-half of spirits. All of these participants underwent heart scan between 2011 and 2013.
The left ventricle, which is the pumping chamber of the heart, seemed to be affected most by the alcohol. The more people drank, the more their heart's structure and function changed. For both men and women, a few drinks a day tended to affect the heart's structure, making it work less efficiently. Women absorb and metabolize alcohol in differently and they are especially vulnerable to such effects. Compared with men, they are more sensitive to the toxic effects of alcohol on cardiac function, developing alcoholic cardiomyopathy with a lower total lifetime dose of alcohol. Nevertheless, changes in heart structure might reverse themselves when drinking stops. Potential benefits of alcohol appear not to outweigh the risk, especially when one indulges alcohol. A Swedish study announced earlier reported that adults aged between 50 and 60 who drank heavily have 34 percent higher stroke than those lighter drinkers. These folks were more likely to have a stroke 5 years earlier, irrespective of their genetic makeup or their overall health and lifestyle choices. As found in the study, heavy drinking might be more dangerous than such traditional health hazards as high blood pressure and diabetes. Heavy drinking will damage the heart, making the heart muscles thicker and more rigid. Sometimes, the heart muscle tissue might be replaced with scar tissue. Alcohol might kill the heart’s muscle cells. The more alcohol that is present in the blood stream, the more the heart muscle gets exposed to the alcohol, and the higher likelihood of early death of heart muscle cells. People with heart muscle disease are at a higher risk of developing heart failure, abnormal heart rhythm and sudden cardiac arrest. That is why the American Heart Association guidelines and 2010 United States Dietary Guidelines recommend limiting alcohol to about 1 drink a day for women and up to 2 for men. Some health experts warn that high amounts of alcohol could also have a similar toxic effect on the cells of the heart muscle for younger people, though the changes might be more difficult to notice.
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