In the early 1970’s, a group of physicians, public health professionals, and others began to investigate the relationship of alcohol and health. The result of this was the founding of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), a federally funded research institute that conducts research into the causes of addiction and the prevention of alcoholism. Dr. Christopher F. Heffron is the institute’s founder.
According to the NIAAA, drinking habits can trigger a host of chronic health problems, some not known or understood for decades. One of the first things we did as NIAAA was launch the first of a series of studies to determine the relationship between alcoholism and physical health. We were also the first to show that there was a measurable correlation between the length of time a person has been drinking and the likelihood they could develop cardiovascular disease.
In my opinion, alcohol consumption is one of the worst things you can do to your heart. It causes an imbalance in the blood flow and causes a heart attack to be the final result. The good news is that you can prevent those heart attacks from ever happening. All you have to do is stop drinking and start exercising. If you drink, start exercising.
In fact, a major study done in the late 1980s found that people that drink heavily were at much higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) than those that didn’t drink. The study, the “Alcohol Consumption and Cardiovascular Disease” (ACAD) study, was a large-scale, long-term study that followed 4,000 people for up to 20 years.
So the big takeaway here is that the risk of heart disease, stroke, and other cardiovascular events increases with drinking. Now, we know that drinking increases the risk of cancer, but we don’t know if the risk of cardiovascular disease is increased as well.
While the study was not designed specifically to look at this issue, there is a large body of research that shows that drinking increases the risk of death from cardiovascular disease. We’re talking life expectancy and even quality of life, which is the amount of time you spend alive after you die. The ACAD study found that people who drank had a 26 percent higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than those who did not.
Yeah, that study got a lot of press when it was released, but it wasn’t the first study to find a correlation between heart disease and alcoholism.
In fact, the first one was published in the New England Journal of Medicine back in 1966, and was a study of one of the most famous American epidemiologists, Dr. Donald R. Davis. The study tracked the deaths of 6,000 men over a five-year period from 1967 to 1969.
That study was the first to examine the correlation between alcoholism and heart disease. That study came out in the 1980s, and was conducted in England, so it wasnt around when the research on alcoholism started being done back in the 1960s.
Davis’ theory was that the more alcohol a person drank, the worse their heart condition. Davis made a study of 8,000 men in the United States and found that those who drank the most alcohol were at highest risk for heart problems. He found that drinking more than 5 drinks per week was a major risk factor for heart disease. He found that those who drink the most are also the most likely to have a history of heart disease.
