Drinking Patterns and Health Problems
Heavy drinking does not lend itself to a healthy lifestyle. Large volume alcohol consumption can lead to secondary injury, and those who routinely drink heavily can affect their jobs and therefore, their ability to obtain health insurance.
Researchers recently examined, however, not only the health implications of heavy alcohol consumption, but overall life-course drinking patterns and their relationship with diabetes, heart problems and hypertension among Americans over 40. The study was conducted by William C. Kerr and Yu Ye.
The objective of the study was to examine the risks of self-reported diabetes, heart problems, and hypertension and estimate their connection with life-course drinking patterns.
The study obtained its information using data from the 2005 National Alcohol Survey, from participants aged 40 and older. The participants whose data was used had all reported having had a doctor or health professional diagnose at least one of each of the three health-problem outcomes.
The researchers established drinking patterns by looking at lifetime abstention and the frequency at which the participant had a “5 drinking day,” which is a day on which five or more drinks were consumed. The patterns were based on drinking during the participant’s teens, 20s, and 30s. Past-year drinking patterns were estimated through intake volume and the number of 5 drinking days.
The researchers used propensity-score matching to control for variables such as demographics, socioeconomic resources and other health-risk variables. Other health risk variables included were depression, distress, sense of coherence, body mass index, tobacco use, marijuana use, childhood abuse, and family history of alcohol problems.
After the matching was completed, a higher risk of diabetes was found to be connected with lifetime abstainers, when compared with lifetime and current moderate drinkers. Those who had given up drinking were found to have a higher risk of diabetes, heart problems, and hypertension.
Higher volume drinkers who did not have monthly 5 drinking days were at a lesser risk for diabetes when compared with moderate-level current drinkers. An increased rate of hypertension was associated with heavy-occasion drinkers.
The study’s findings indicate that a lower volume alcohol consumption may protect against adult onset diabetes, but there was no benefit found towards protection against heart problems or hypertension.
In addition, the study found that both life-course-defined and past year-defined drinking groups were connected with a significant clustering of risk variables. The increased risks among those who had given up drinking showed that there may be a “sick quitter” effect occurring.
