Shirakawa T, et al. – This study assessed the risk of mortality ascribed to aortic diseases in relation to alcohol consumption. In Japanese men, light to moderate alcohol consumption was associated with reduced mortality from aortic disease.

Methods

• Researchers performed a follow-up until the end of 2009 in 34,720 men from the Japan Collaborative Cohort study, aged 40–79 years, without history of cardiovascular disease and cancer at baseline 1988 and 1990, for their mortality and its underlying cause.
• They estimated hazard ratios of mortality from aortic diseases according to alcohol consumption categories of never-drinkers, ex-drinkers, regular drinkers of ≤30 g, and >30 g ethanol per day.

Results

• Findings revealed that during the median 17.9-year follow-up period, 45 men died of aortic dissection and 41 men died of abdominal aortic aneurysm.
• Researchers observed that light to moderate drinkers of ≤30 g ethanol per day had lower risk of mortality from total aortic disease and aortic dissection compared to never-drinkers.
• Data reported that the respective multivariable hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) were 0.46 (0.28–0.76) for total aortic disease and 0.16 (0.05–0.50) for aortic dissection.
• In addition, they noted that heavy drinkers of >30 g ethanol per day did not have reduced risk of mortality from total aortic disease, albeit had risk variation between aortic dissection and abdominal aortic aneurysm.