Pattern of drinking affects the relation of alcohol intake to coronary heart disease
A fascinating study published in the BMJ shows that although the French drink more than the Northern Irish each week, as they drink daily, rather than more on less occasions, the French suffered from considerably less coronary heart disease than the Northern Irish. Ruidavets and colleagues compared groups of middle aged men in France and Northern Ireland, who have very different drinking cultures and rates of heart disease.The authors found that men who "binge" drink (drink =50 g of alcohol once a week) had nearly twice the risk of myocardial infarction or death from coronary disease compared with regular drinkers over 10 years of follow-up. Similarly abstainers were at higher risk. 9,778 men aged 50-59, free of ischaemic heart disease at baseline, were recruited between 1991 and 1994. A total of 2,405 men from Belfast and 7,373 men from the French centres were included in the analyses.