Myocardial infarction and alcohol consumption: A case-control study

BACKGROUND: Although epidemiological evidence for the beneficial effect of low alcohol consumption on myocardial infarction is strong, the impact of heavy drinking episodes is less clear. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to investigate a possible association between the risk for acute myocardial infarction occurrence and alcohol consumption. METHODS: Our hospital-based case-control study comprised 374 participants (187 newly diagnosed patients with myocardial infarction and 187 controls, individually matched by gender, age, and place of residence). This study was performed in Kragujevac (a city in Serbia) during 2010. Logistic regression analysis was used to determine odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). RESULTS: The history of alcohol consumption in patients with acute myocardial infarction and their controls did not differ significantly: the percentage of those that were consuming alcohol was slightly higher in cases (54.5%) than in controls (50.3%). The habit of binge drinking during the previous 12 months was significantly more common in cases (25.1%) than in controls (12.8%): adjusted OR = 2.2 (95%CI = 1.2–4.2, p = 0.017), p for trend = 0.015. Analysis of binge drinking by age, gender and place of residence revealed that the increase in risk for acute myocardial infarction was associated with older age (adjusted OR = 5.1, 95%CI = 1.7–15.1, p for trend = 0.010), male gender (adjusted OR = 2.3, 95%CI = 1.1–5.2, p for trend = 0.028) and rural place of residence (adjusted OR = 4.8, 95%CI = 1.3–18.5, p for trend = 0.033). CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that binge drinking is associated with twice the risk for myocardial infarction compared to not drinking. Since consumption of alcohol is very common in the Serbian population, the effect of binge drinking on myocardial infarction should be considered an important public health issue.