Moderate drinking benefits after heart attack

Moderate drinkers who continue the habit of drinking alcohol after suffering a heart attack may fare better than their counterparts who give up alcohol.

Many studies have linked light-to-moderate drinking to a lower risk of developing heart disease, compared with both heavy drinking and abstention. To know how good moderate drinking is after heart attack, researchers studied data on 325 American heart attack survivors. Overall, 84 percent kept up that drinking pattern, while 16 percent quit drinking.

It was found that a year after the heart attack, participants who were still drinking moderately generally had higher scores on a standard questionnaire of physical functioning - which gauges people's ability to climb stairs, carry groceries and perform other day-to-day tasks. Drinkers also had a lower death rate after three years - six percent versus 10 percent among quitters - and fewer repeat hospitalisation in the first year post-heart attack.

However, when the researchers accounted for other factors such as age and overall health at the time of the heart attack, moderate drinking itself was no longer strongly linked to lower death rates or hospitalisations. In contrast, moderate drinking remained linked to better physical function even when other factors were considered.

It was also noted that moderate drinking helped raise HDL cholesterol, reduce body-wide inflammation, and improve sensitivity to the blood-sugar-regulating hormone insulin.

The researchers concluded that those who continued their usual moderate drinking habits following a heart attack suffer no adverse effects and generally have better physical function than those who quit drinking. Experts do not recommend that non-drinkers start drinking for the sake of the potential heart benefits.

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