MedWire News: Heavy alcohol consumption increases the risk of death from stokes in men, and death from coronary heart disease in women, study results show.

"Previous studies have demonstrated the association between alcohol consumption and cardiovascular mortality. However, the sex-specific association between alcohol consumption and mortality from stroke and coronary heart disease remains unclear," explain Dr Hiroyasu Iso, from Osaka University in Japan, and team.

To investigate, the researchers studied data from a survey of more than 34,000 men and 48,000 women, aged between 40 to 79 years, conducted between 1988 and 1990.

Over an average monitoring period of 14 years, 1628 of the participants died from stroke and 736 from coronary heart disease.

Analysis revealed that men who drank at least four standard alcoholic drinks a day were 1.48 times more likely to die from any type of stroke than men who drank no alcohol.

Specifically, men who were heavy drinkers were 1.67 times more likely to die from a hemorrhagic stroke, caused by bleeding, and 1.35 times more likely to die from ischemic stokes, caused by blood clots, than non-drinking men.

Among women, heavy drinking was associated with 4.10-fold increased risk of death from coronary heart disease.

Light-to-moderate drinking in men and light drinking in women was associated with a reduced risk of death cardiovascular disease.

"We expected to find an increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke," said Dr Iso. "But since alcohol reduces the ability of the blood to clot, we didn't expect to find the increases in ischemic stroke and coronary heart disease."

Writing in the journal Stroke, the team concludes: "Heavy alcohol consumption is associated with increased mortality from total stroke, particularly hemorrhagic stroke, and total cardiovascular disease for men, and from coronary heart disease for women, whereas light-to-moderate drinking may be associated with reduced mortality from cardiovascular disease for both sexes."