Why Alcohol Is Good For the Arteries

(HealthScout) -- A German study lends support to the theory that moderate consumption of alcohol makes hearts healthier because it reduces artery-harming inflammation.

The study also supports the current recommendation that only moderate drinking -- one or two a day at most -- is beneficial. It finds that the molecular markers of inflammation are reduced by low alcohol intake but go up with heavy intake.

Inflammation probably is not the only way in which alcohol affects arteries, says Dr. Armin Imhof, a cardiology resident at the University of Ulm Medical Center and lead author of a paper in the March 10 issue of The Lancet. Moderate drinking may also lower lipid levels and reduce clot-forming blood coagulation, he says.

And while the inflammation theory is not fully accepted, "evidence for it has come up more and more in the last few years," Imhof says.

The theory says that moderate alcohol consumption reduces blood concentrations of molecules associated with inflammation, including some globulins and albumin. Imhof and his colleagues studied levels of those markers in 1,776 men and women whose alcohol intake varied from teetotaling to moderate to heavy.

The researchers concentrated on one marker, C-reactive protein (CRP), which is prominently associated with inflammation, and they report that "nondrinkers and heavy drinkers had higher CRP concentrations that moderate drinkers." That relationship also applies to other inflammation-associated markers.

"There was a clear dose-response relationship, which was more pronounced in men than in women, between almost all of these markers and the reported quantities of alcohol consumed," they report.

The molecular reasons why low alcohol consumption is helpful and heavy drinking is harmful are not clear, Imhof says. "That is a question we would like to answer in the next year," he says.

Don't use it as medicine

And he says that people who don't drink should not take up the habit to protect their hearts. "On the basis of our data, we would not recommend that people drink," Imhof says. "We have to take into account that alcohol intake can cause a lot of morbidity and mortality."

That advice is in line with recommendations made a few weeks ago by the American Heart Association's nutrition committee, says Dr. Richard A. Stein, chief of the division of cardiology at the Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York and a heart association spokesperson.

That recommendation says that the protective effect comes with an intake of no more than two glasses of wine, two beers or two drinks a day. "Any more than that, it raises blood pressure and does other things that move the effect back toward causing heart disease, not preventing it," Stein says.

The inflammation theory raises questions about another recommended protective measure, taking aspirin every day. Aspirin also affects the inflammatory response, "so if you are taking small doses of aspirin, should you also be taking alcohol?" Stein says. "The answer is, we don't know."

"In an age when we can get almost all the protective effects of alcohol with other things, such as taking aspirin, taking statins to lower cholesterol levels and exercising regularly, it is not necessary to drink," Stein says. "There are a bunch of heart-healthy changes one can make with no downside to them."

Learn more about alcohol and the heart from the American Heart Association. You can also try the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for more general information about preventing heart disease.

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