Study suggests limiting alcohol intake in middle age

Drinking more than two alcoholic beverages per day in middle age could increase the risk of stroke more than the well-known culprits of having high blood pressure or diabetes, according to a new study.

That alcohol consumption increases one's risk of stroke is well known, but the current study is the first to identify a difference based on age.

"We now have a clearer picture about these risk factors, how they change with age and how the influence of drinking alcohol shifts as we get older," says Pavla Kadlecová, M.Sc., a statistician at St. Anne's University Hospital's International Clinical Research Center in the Czech Republic.

In the study, 11,644 middle-aged Swedish twins were followed for 43 years and the research team set out to compare if a person's level of drinking made a difference concerning stroke risk.

Having more than two drinks per day was considered "heavy drinking" by the researchers while drinking less than half a drink daily was considered "light drinking," and middle age was considered to be the 50s and 60s.

The team concluded that heavy drinkers had a 34 percent higher risk of stroke than the light drinkers.

Those who drank heavily in mid-life were likely to have a stroke five years earlier than the light drinkers no matter what kind of genes they had and no matter what their health history and behavior was like in early life.

The findings only apply to midlife, however, for around the age of 75, blood pressure and diabetes overtook drinking as the most influential factors increasing risk of stroke.

The American Heart Association recommends limiting alcohol intake to two drinks per day for men and one for women, which converts to eight ounces of wine for men and four for women.

Regular heavy drinking can raise blood pressure and lead to cardiac problems such as irregular heartbeats and heart failure in addition to the risk of stroke.

The study was published in the American Heart Association journal Stroke.