Two Drinks A Day May Lead To Heart Damage In Older Adults
New findings published in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging reveal that having more than two drinks a day could lead to significant heart damage in older adults.
Resarch revealed that elderly who drank two or more alcoholic drinks per day had hearts with thicker walls and larger pumping chambers, which could dramatically disrupt the organ's function.
The study, which involved 4,466 participants who were an average age of 76, specifically linked 14 or more alcoholic beverages to the enlargement of the wall of the heart's main pumping chamber (left ventricular mass) in men and reduced heart function in women.
"Women appear more susceptible than men to the cardiotoxic effects of alcohol, which might potentially contribute to a higher risk of alcoholic cardiomyopathy, for any given level of alcohol intake," senior author Dr. Scott Solomon, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of noninvasive cardiology at Brigham and Women's in Boston, said in a news release.
The threshold for women was lower overall, at roughly one drink per day. Furthermore, researchers added that the potential benefits of alcohol certainly did not outweigh the risks. In other words, if you haven't started drinking, you probably shouldn't, particularly if you're older.
"In spite of potential benefits of low alcohol intake, our findings highlight the possible hazards to cardiac structure and function by increased amounts of alcohol consumption in the elderly, particularly among women. This reinforces the U.S. recommendations stating that those who drink should do so with moderation," concluded lead author Alexandra Gonçalves, M.D.; Ph.D.,a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Brigham and Women's in Boston, according to a statement.
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