Sick of being told drinking alcohol is bad for your health? Well good news, as research reveals light to moderate drinking can actually improve your heart health. How does that work?
From digestive problems to liver disease to various types of cancer, you’re constantly bombarded by messaging telling you to limit your alcohol consumption or you’ll be sacrificing your health.
You could be forgiven for assuming there’s no healthy – or even safe – amount of alcohol, and that all drinking will have a net negative effect.
However, previous studies have suggested that light to moderate alcohol consumption is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. But it has been mostly unknown whether alcohol was inducing cardiovascular benefits, or whether light/moderate drinkers’ health behaviours, socioeconomic status, or other factors were protecting their hearts.
Now, new research has identified exactly how alcohol works to reduce your heart risk. The researchers found the reduced risk was due to alcohol’s ability to suppress stress signalling within your brain.
Cardiologist Dr Ahmed Tawakol, senior author of the study, is quick to point out that his research is not a blanket endorsement to go out drinking.
“We are not advocating the use of alcohol to reduce the risk of heart attacks or strokes because of other concerning effects of alcohol on health,” he says.
“We wanted to understand how light to moderate drinking reduces cardiovascular disease, as demonstrated by multiple other studies. And if we could find the mechanism, the goal would be to find other approaches that could replicate or induce alcohol’s protective cardiac effects without the adverse impacts of alcohol.”
The study looked at the alcohol consumption and health data of more than 50,000 individuals and adjusted for a range of genetic, clinical, lifestyle, and socioeconomic factors.
The results showed that light to moderate alcohol consumption was still associated with a substantial reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease events, even after accounting for those other factors.
In the second part of the study, the data of 754 individuals who had undergone previous PET/CT brain imaging (primarily for cancer surveillance) was examined in order to determine the effect of alcohol consumption on resting stress brain activity.
The images showed reduced stress signalling in the amygdala – the region of the brain most associated with stress responses – in individuals who were light to moderate drinkers compared to those who abstained from alcohol or who drank very little.
Surprisingly, they found fewer heart attacks and strokes in the drinking group than in the non-drinking group.
“We found that the brain changes in light to moderate drinkers explained a significant portion of the protective cardiac effects,” Dr Tawakol says.
He concludes further research should focus on finding new interventions that reduce the brain’s stress activity without all the negative effects of alcohol.
The research team is currently studying the effects of exercise and other pharmacological therapies on the brain’s stress signalling network to find out if they can replicate the cardiovascular benefits.
How often do you drink? Would you say it reduces your stress levels? Let us know in the comments section below.
Also read: Alarm sounded over ‘low sugar’ alcohol
Health disclaimer: This article contains general information about health issues and is not advice. For health advice, consult your medical practitioner.
