{"id":957,"date":"2005-07-01T10:02:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-01T14:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jaydub.cms-devl.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/2005\/01\/01\/cautions-in-interpreting-the-cardiovascular-effects-of-moderate-drinking\/"},"modified":"2017-01-31T11:47:14","modified_gmt":"2017-01-31T16:47:14","slug":"cautions-in-interpreting-the-cardiovascular-effects-of-moderate-drinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/2005\/07\/01\/cautions-in-interpreting-the-cardiovascular-effects-of-moderate-drinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Cautions   in Interpreting the Cardiovascular Effects of Moderate   Drinking"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"research-summary-body\">\n                    <!-- InstanceBeginEditable name=\"contents\" -->  <\/p>\n<p>Moderate<br \/>\n  drinking has been linked to lower risks of cardiovascular<br \/>\n  disease (CVD) and death. These potential benefits, however,<br \/>\n  may be explained by more CVD risk factors in nondrinkers<br \/>\n  (i.e., confounders). To explore this possibility, investigators<br \/>\n  at the Centers for Disease Control studied 235,730 adult<br \/>\n  nondrinkers* and moderate drinkers** who had participated<br \/>\n  in a nationally representative telephone survey (54% response<br \/>\n  rate). <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Most<br \/>\n      (27 of 30) characteristics associated with CVD were<br \/>\n      significantly more common in nondrinkers than in moderate<br \/>\n      drinkers. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nondrinkers<br \/>\n      were older; less likely to be white, married, educated,<br \/>\n      and physically active; and less likely to have a<br \/>\n      high income, health insurance, a personal doctor,<br \/>\n      a flu shot, and cholesterol or colorectal cancer<br \/>\n      screenings. <\/li>\n<li>They<br \/>\n      were also more likely to have diabetes, hypertension,<br \/>\n      obesity, high cholesterol, asthma, poor dental health,<br \/>\n      arthritis, and poor health status.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Smoking<br \/>\n  and male sex were the only CVD risk factors more common<br \/>\n  in moderate drinkers. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!-- InstanceEndEditable --><\/p>\n<div class=\"research-summary-footnotes-1\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name=\"footnotes-1\" --><!-- InstanceEndEditable -->\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<h2 class=\"research-summary-comments\">Comments:<\/h2>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name=\"comments\" -->  <\/p>\n<p> Many<br \/>\n  epidemiological studies of moderate drinking have adjusted<br \/>\n  for certain confounders but have either ignored others<br \/>\n  (e.g., psychosocial risks) or not accounted for the interactions<br \/>\n  between confounders (e.g., diabetes and lack of health<br \/>\n  insurance). Although this study examined the prevalence<br \/>\n  of possible confounders and found that most CVD risk factors<br \/>\n  were more common in nondrinkers, it did not directly test<br \/>\n  whether these confounders explained the relationship between<br \/>\n  alcohol and CVD. A prominent alcohol epidemiologist recently<br \/>\n  wrote that confounders may largely\u2014or entirely\u2014explain<br \/>\n  the observed cardiovascular benefits of moderate drinking.<br \/>\n  Only a large-scale, randomized trial can determine whether<br \/>\n  alcohol decreases CVD. In the meantime, I agree with the<br \/>\n  American Heart Association&#8217;s statement that &#8220;there is<br \/>\n  little current justification to recommend alcohol as a<br \/>\n  cardioprotective strategy.&#8221;  <\/p>\n<p>  <!-- InstanceEndEditable --><br \/>\n                    <cite><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name=\"name\" --><br \/>\nRichard Saitz, MD, MPH  <!-- InstanceEndEditable --><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/cite><\/p>\n<div class=\"research-summary-footnotes\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name=\"footnotes\" --><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t*Abstinent for the past 30 days <br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t**&lt;=2 standard drinks per day for men, &lt;=1 for women<!-- InstanceEndEditable -->\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<h2>Reference:<\/h2>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name=\"reference\" -->  <\/p>\n<p>\n  Naimi TS, Brown DW, Brewer RD. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science?_ob=ArticleURL&amp;_aset=V-WA-A-W-C-MsSAYVW-UUA-U-AAWWZCBEEV-AAWUWBVDEV-WUUCUYUZW-C-U&amp;_rdoc=1&amp;_fmt=summary&amp;_udi=B6VHT-4FXM4M3-7&amp;_coverDate=05\/31\/2005&amp;_cdi=6075&amp;_orig=search&amp;_st=13&amp;_sort=d&amp;view=c&amp;_acct=C000050221&amp;_version=1&amp;_urlVersion=0&amp;_userid=10&amp;md5=bfece85fff493faa02a6a75937114cee\" target=\"_blank\">Cardiovascular risk factors and confounders among nondrinking and moderate drinking U.S. adults.<\/a> <em>Am J Prev Med. <\/em> 2005;28(4):369-373. <\/p>\n<p>\tWannamethee SG. <a href=\"http:\/\/ije.oxfordjournals.org\/cgi\/content\/extract\/34\/1\/205\" target=\"_blank\">Alcohol and mortality: diminishing returns for benefits of alcohol. <\/a> <em>Int J Epidemiol<\/em>. 2005;34(1):205-206.<\/p>\n<p>  Goldberg IJ, Mosca L, Piano MR. <a href=\"http:\/\/circ.ahajournals.org\/cgi\/content\/full\/103\/3\/472?maxtoshow=&amp;HITS=10&amp;hits=10&amp;RESULTFORMAT=1&amp;author1=goldberg&amp;author2=mosca&amp;andorexacttitle=and&amp;andorexacttitleabs=and&amp;andorexactfulltext=and&amp;searchid=1120058572774_5954&amp;stored_search=&amp;FIRSTINDEX=0&amp;sortspec=relevance&amp;search_url=http%3A\/\/circ.ahajournals.org\/cgi\/search&amp;journalcode=circulationaha\" target=\"_blank\">Wine and your heart: a science advisory for healthcare professionals from the Nutrition Committee, Council on Epidemiology and Prevention, and Council on Cardiovascular Nursing of the American Heart Association.<\/a> <em>Circulation. <\/em> 2001;103(3):472-475.\n  <\/p>\n<p>  <!-- InstanceEndEditable -->\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Moderate drinking has been linked to lower risks of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and death. These potential benefits, however, may be explained by more CVD risk factors in nondrinkers (i.e., confounders). To explore this possibility, investigators at the Centers for Disease Control studied 235,730 adult nondrinkers* and moderate drinkers** who had participated in a nationally representative [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11272,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[77],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=957"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3093,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957\/revisions\/3093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/aodhealth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}