BACKGROUND: Alcohol and caffeine intakes may play a role in the development of sudden cardiac death (SCD) because of their effects on cholesterol, blood pressure, heart rate variability, and inflammation.
OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to examine the association between long-term alcohol and caffeine intakes and risk of SCD in women.
DESIGN: We examined 93,676 postmenopausal women who participated in the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study. Women were enrolled between 1993 and 1998 and were followed until August 2009. Women completed a food-frequency questionnaire at baseline and again at year 3. We modeled exposure to alcohol 3 ways: by using baseline intake only, a cumulative average of baseline and year 3 intake, and the most recent reported intake (a simple time-varying analysis).
RESULTS: Intake of 5-15 g alcohol/d (about one drink) was associated with a nonsignificantly reduced risk of SCD compared with 0.1-5 g/d of baseline intake (HR: 0.64; 95% CI: 0.40, 1.02), of cumulative average intake (HR: 0.69; 95% CI: 0.43, 1.11), and of most recent intake (HR: 0.58; 95% CI: 0.35, 0.96), with adjustment for age, race, income, smoking, body mass index, physical activity, hormone use, and total energy. No association was found between SCD and total caffeine intake (mg/d) or cups of caffeinated coffee, decaffeinated coffee, and caffeinated tea.
CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that about one drink per day (or 5.1-15 g/d) may be associated with a reduced risk of SCD in this population; however, this association was only statistically significant for a model using the most recent alcohol intake. Total caffeine, regular coffee, decaffeinated coffee, and regular tea intake were not associated with the risk of SCD.
This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00000611
Data are lacking regarding the association of alcohol consumption with a broad range of other cancer risk factors. Objectives: (i) to assess which sociodemographic, lifestyle and dietary factors were associated with alcohol consumption; (ii) to identify profiles of alcohol consumers by beverage type; (iii) to estimate the number of cancer risk factors accumulated on the individual level according to alcohol consumption. Alcohol and dietary intakes were assessed by six 24 hr records among 29,566 adults of the NutriNet-Sante cohort. Factors associated with alcohol consumption (nondrinkers (reference)/< 10 g/day/>/= 10 g/day) were assessed by polytomic multivariate logistic regression stratified by gender. Among alcohol consumers, percentages of alcohol brought by each beverage type were compared across sociodemographic and lifestyle characteristics using Kruskal-Wallis rank tests. Several factors were associated with alcohol consumption >/= 10 g/day in both genders: older age (pmen = 0.02, pwomen < 0.0001), smoking (pmen&women < 0.0001), higher socioprofessional category (pmen&women < 0.0001), higher income (pmen = 0.003, pwomen < 0.0001) and less healthy dietary intakes. Profiles of subjects varied across alcoholic beverage types. Men with history of cardiovascular disease (p = 0.0002) or depression (p = 0.03) and women with history of cirrhosis (p < 0.0001) consumed less alcohol. In women, personal history of cancer was associated with a lower proportion of moderate alcohol users only (< 10 g/day, p = 0.04). In both genders, higher alcohol drinkers clustered more cancer risk factors (median = 5, apart from alcohol) than nondrinkers (median = 4), p < 0.0001. The multiplicity of deleterious lifestyle behaviors combined with alcohol drinking must be taken into account in cancer prevention efforts. Gender-specific medical advice for people with personal or family history of alcohol-related diseases, including cancer, should be strengthened.
We investigated the effect of alcoholic beverage consumption on the risk of lung cancer using the California Men's Health Study.
METHODS: The California Men's Health Study is a multiethnic cohort of 84,170 men ages 45 to 69 years who are members of the Kaiser Permanente California health plans. Demographics and detailed lifestyle characteristics were collected from surveys mailed between 2000 and 2003. Incident lung cancer cases were identified by health plan cancer registries through December 2006 (n=210). Multivariable Cox's regression was used to examine the effects of beer, red wine, white wine (including rose), and liquor consumption on risk of lung cancer adjusting for age, race/ethnicity, education, income, body mass index, history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease/emphysema, and smoking history.
RESULTS: There was a significant linear decrease in risk of lung cancer associated with consumption of red wine among ever-smokers: hazard ratio (HR), 0.98; 95% confidence interval (95% CI), 0.96-1.00 for increase of 1 drink per month. This relationship was slightly stronger among heavy smokers (>or=20 pack-years): HR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.93-1.00. When alcoholic beverage consumption was examined by frequency of intake, consumption of >or=1 drink of red wine per day was associated with an approximately 60% reduced lung cancer risk in ever-smokers: HR, 0.39; 95% CI, 0.14-1.08. No clear associations with lung cancer were seen for intake of white wine, beer, or liquor.
CONCLUSION: Moderate red wine consumption was inversely associated with lung cancer risk after adjusting for confounders. Our results should not be extrapolated to heavy alcohol consumption.
AIMS: It is generally accepted, but not yet documented that the risk of future alcoholism increases with the amount of alcohol consumed. The objective of this study was to investigate this association using the Copenhagen City Heart Study.
METHODS: Quantity and frequency of alcohol intake was measured in 19 698 men and women randomly drawn from the Copenhagen Population Register in 1976-78. The study population was linked to three different registers in order to detect alcoholism, and average follow-up time was 25 years.
RESULTS: After adjustment for all putative confounders, the risk of alcoholism for women increased significantly at 1-7 drinks per week with a hazard ratio (HR) of 2.02 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.16, 3.53) compared to never/almost never drinking; the HR for drinking monthly was 1.75 (95% CI: 1.08, 2.85). The risk for men did not increase significantly before 22-41 drinks per week (HR = 3.81, 95 % CI: 2.18, 6.68) or if they had a daily alcohol intake (HR = 3.55, 95 % CI: 2.11, 5.99). Smoking was independently associated with the risk of alcoholism for both men and women.
CONCLUSION: The risk of developing alcoholism increased significantly by very low intakes of alcohol in women, while the risk is only increased significantly in men consuming more than 21 drinks per week.