A new study has brought fresh insights into the complicated relationship between alcohol consumption and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk.
Published in BMC Medicine, this research identified 60 metabolites associated with alcohol intake, revealing how they might influence heart health in opposing ways.
Previously, moderate alcohol consumption was believed to lower the risk of CVD, but recent studies have challenged this notion, suggesting moderate drinking could actually be harmful to heart health.
The study, led by Chunyu Liu, assistant professor of biostatistics at Boston University, offers a nuanced understanding of how alcohol affects cardiovascular risk.
The research team focused on metabolites—molecules produced during the metabolism of substances, often used as biomarkers for diseases.
They discovered that long-term moderate alcohol consumption is associated with both an increased and decreased risk of CVD, depending on specific circulating metabolites. Seven of these metabolites were linked to a higher CVD risk, while three were associated with a lower risk.
This study contributes to the ongoing debate about moderate alcohol consumption and heart health. It doesn’t provide a definitive answer but highlights the complexity of alcohol’s effects on cardiovascular health.
The researchers analyzed blood samples from 2,428 participants in the Framingham Heart Study Offspring Study, spanning over 20 years, to measure the relationship between beer, wine, and liquor consumption and 211 metabolites. Among these participants, 636 developed CVD.
One of the intriguing findings was that 13 of the 60 alcohol-related metabolites had a stronger association with alcohol consumption in women than in men, possibly due to differences in body size and blood alcohol concentration.
Moreover, the type of alcohol consumed (beer, wine, or liquor) influenced different metabolomic responses, with beer showing a slightly weaker overall association.
Interestingly, branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) were not associated with alcohol consumption.
The researchers also developed two metabolite scores related to alcohol consumption, which showed opposite associations with CVD development.
Despite the intriguing findings, Liu and Ma emphasize the need for further validation and larger-scale research involving more diverse populations, as the current study only included white participants.
Future studies will aim to incorporate a wider range of molecular markers, including genetic information, to better understand the intricate relationship between alcohol consumption, metabolite profiles, and cardiovascular risk.
This research marks a significant step in understanding how alcohol consumption affects heart health and highlights the need for personalized approaches in assessing the risk of alcohol-related CVD.
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The research findings can be found in the journal BMC Medicine.
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