Recent Developments in Alcoholism

Cardiovascular effects of alcohol.

Recent Developments in Alcoholism

Recent developments in alcoholism an official publication of the American Medical Society on Alcoholism the Research Society on Alcoholism and the National Council on Alcoholism, January 1998

9751945

978-0-306-45747-0, 978-0-306-47148-3

Friedman, H S, Friedman, Howard S.

The ingestion of one or two alcoholic drinks can affect heart rate, blood pressure, cardiac output, myocardial contractility, and regional blood flow. These actions generally are not clinically important. In the presence of cardiovascular disease, however, even such small quantities of alcohol might result in transient unfavorable hemodynamic changes. Moreover, alcohol abuse can produce cardiac arrhythmias, hypertension, cardiomyopathy, stroke, and even sudden death. In contrast, moderate alcohol use produces changes that have an overall favorable effect on atherosclerotic-related vascular diseases. Because cardiovascular disease due to atherosclerosis is the leading cause of death in Western society, this desirable effect of alcohol use outweighs its detrimental actions, resulting in favorable findings in population studies. Nevertheless, the body of evidence argues against encouraging alcohol use for its cardiovascular effects.