Moderate Drinking Doesn’t Help Your Heart

Mendelian meta-analysis and the alcohol “flush” allele.

Less than a year after the massive Mendelian randomization meta-analysis published in the British Medical Journal, a group of researchers recently wrote an editorial in the journal Addiction, which would seem to put a lid on the matter:

The foundations of the hypothesis for protective effects of low-dose alcohol have now been so undermined that in our opinion the field is due for a major repositioning of the status of moderate alcohol consumption as protective…. Health professionals should not recommend moderate alcohol consumption as a means of reducing         cardiovascular risk for patients. At the policy level, the hypothesis of health benefits from moderate drinking should no longer play a role in decision making.

To recap: In the Mendelian meta-analysis, drinkers with a genetic variant linked to the so-called alcohol flush reaction, which leads to lower consumption among those who drink, also correlated with a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease. “Carriers of the rs1229984 A-allele had lower levels of alcohol consumption and exhibited lower levels of blood pressure, inflammatory biomarkers, adiposity measures, and non-HDL cholesterol, and reduced odds of developing coronary heart disease, compared with non-carriers of this allele.”

But as it turned out, this relationship only held for drinkers, not for abstainers.

Why, then, have so many epidemiologists agreed for several decades now that “moderate” alcohol intake has a protective effect against heart diseases? According to the editorial authors—drug researchers from Australia, Canada, the U.S., and Sweden—earlier research tended to use “abstainers” as the key reference group to which drinkers were compared. Studies that separated former drinkers and occasional drinkers from abstainers got different results—they didn’t show significant protection correlating with moderate alcohol consumption. The theory, say the researchers, is that non-addicted drinkers spontaneously reduce their alcohol intake with age and medical concerns. Some of these people with a declining health profile are counted as “abstainers.” But when former and current drinkers are combined, then compared with life-long abstainers to address selection bias, “the observed disparity in health status between abstainers and low-dose drinkers was eliminated.”

But it’s not quite over. Michael Rioerecke and Jurgen Rehm at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, argue in another Addiction editorial that there are still a few things unaccounted for: The allele in question is assumed to be randomly spread throughout the population, which may or may not be true, especially since allele carriers are relatively rare in several European countries. The allele is also assumed to be mediated by average alcohol intake. Binge drinking, which allele carriers presuming engage in less, is not assessed in the study.  In short, they write, “we do not know if the average level of alcohol intake of the allele carriers within the strata of average consumption was indeed lower than that of the non-carriers.” Nonetheless, even Rioerecke and Rehm concede that the evidence continues to look promising for this revision of conventional drinking wisdom. More than 100 studies have shown relatively stable associations between alcohol and heart disease, and absent a new breakthrough method of epidemiological study, this one stands a good chance of holding firm.

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Harm Reduction Advocate Takes on the Abstinence Question

A guest editorial on “clean and sober” vs “drinking less.”

One of the most divisive issues in the harm reduction movement is the question of abstinence versus controlled drinking. This rift has come to symbolize differences over the AA philosophy, the disease model, the role of will power, and other issues related to addiction. Those who find the disease model unconvincing at best, and some sort of fraud at worst, are more likely to bristle at the notion that total abstinence is the only course available to the addict in treatment. But disease model proponents point out that, for most alcoholics, not drinking at all turns about to be easier than drinking a little. Still, for heavy drinkers who are not addicted to alcohol, cutting down often makes the most sense.

Kenneth Anderson of the harm reduction group HAMS has written an article on the abstinence question which is as straightforward and free of special pleading as any I’ve seen from the harm reduction movement. Bear in mind that I don’t agree with all of the opinions expressed in this guest post, and remain convinced that for most people who abuse alcohol regularly, sustained abstinence is the best policy. But I definitely believe it’s worth a read.


Drinking Again
By Kenneth Anderson

If you have successfully resolved your problems with alcohol via long term (6 months or more) abstinence from alcohol then HAMS urges you to use great caution before you consider drinking again. Studies (NIAAA 2009) show that about half of persons with Alcohol Dependence resolve the problem by quitting completely. HAMS is always supportive of total abstinence as a recovery goal; since the “A” in HAMS stands for Abstinence we like to say that “Quitting drinking is our middle name.” Harm reduction strategies are aimed at those who are unwilling, unable, or not yet ready to abstain from alcohol. This includes people who have attempted abstinence and ultimately not succeeded at it but instead have gone on major benders after short abstinence periods. It also includes those who have never attempted abstinence or who currently have no interest in abstinence. Increased trauma produces increased drinking (Denning & Little 2011). The more resources people have intact, the better their odds of achieving recovery–whether abstinent or non-abstinent recovery. Harm reduction helps keep people’s resources intact enabling them to recover more quickly and easily than if they lost all.

If you are succeeding at abstinence and your alcohol related problems have disappeared or are disappearing then we strongly urge you to continue with what you find to be working–i.e. abstinence. However, if you have already decided that you are going to dink again then HAMS is a safe place to experiment with controlled drinking and you will be far safer here than if you attempt this on your own with no support at all.

If you are wavering and have not yet decided whether or not you wish to drink again then we strongly suggest that you do a Cost Benefit Analysis (aka a Decisional Balance Sheet) which compares the pros and cons of continuing to abstain with the pros and cons of drinking again. We also suggest that you write out a list of alcohol related losses and problems and a list of what you have gained as a result of abstinence from alcohol.

Some people are more likely to succeed in drinking again than others:

People whose drug of choice was not alcohol. If you went to rehab for heroin or some other drug which was not alcohol you were probably told that you were cross addicted to all mood altering drugs and that you must never drink again or you would relapse. The simple fact is that this is not true. You may well have noticed your rehab counselors using mood altering drugs like caffeine and nicotine all the time and not calling this a relapse. The fact is that if you try to use alcohol as a direct substitute for heroin and get as drunk as possible all the time instead of shooting heroin then you will certainly have alcohol problems. However, if you get your life together and become a whole new person with a whole new life there is no chemical reason in your brain why you should not have an adult beverage at times. Opioids are directly cross-tolerant with each other; they are only slightly cross-tolerant with alcohol. Other drugs like speed are not cross tolerant with alcohol at all.

We do, however, very strongly recommend that if you are an ex drug user who is choosing to drink in moderation that you track your drinks by charting. Keeping a drinking chart will help you keep your drink numbers under control and let you know if you are starting to slip out of bounds. If you find your drinking is showing a tendency to “creep” up more and more you might wish to opt to return to abstinence from alcohol. We also strongly suggest that you do your experimenting within the safety net of a HAMS group and that you write out a Cost Benefit Analysis.

Another group who may tend to succeed with drinking again are those who were sowing a lot of wild oats in high school or college and wound up in rehab or an abstinence program in their teens or early twenties. If you are now in your forties you might have matured a great deal and no longer be interested in being the wild man. If you now find that moderate drinking is appealing to you but the thought of being a drunk teenager throwing up on your date’s shoes at a party is repulsive to you then you may well find success at becoming a moderate drinking. Again we suggest that you do your experimenting within the safety of a HAMS group and that you chart and do a Cost Benefit Analysis.

If you had a long drinking career and a long history of alcohol related problems then the odds of returning to controlled drinking are greatly reduced. The longer the drinking career and the more problems the lower the chances of successful controlled drinking.

If you think that you have a shot at becoming a successful controlled drinker, then write down what it is that has changed in your situation that you believe will make you a successful controlled drinker this time around. If nothing has changed then it may well be excruciatingly difficult to try to use the HAMS harm reduction and moderate drinking tools to become a controlled drinker. Not only may you find that your odds of success are low, but you may also find that staying within the moderate drinking limits you have set for yourself is a form of torture and that abstinence is far simpler and more pleasant.

HAMS harm reduction strategies are not a magic bullet which can turn everyone into a successful controlled drinker. For many, many people abstinence remains the best choice. Abstinence is simple and clear cut and avoids the problem of shades of gray

And whether you opt to continue to abstain or you choose to drink again, always remember that you and no one but you are responsible for your choices.


REFERENCES:

Denning P, Little J. (2011). Practicing Harm Reduction Psychotherapy, Second Edition: An Alternative Approach to Addictions. The Guilford Press.

NIAAA (2009). Alcoholism Isn’t What It Used To Be. NIAAA Spectrum. Vol 1, Number 1, p 1-3. (PDF)


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