Health & Medicine, UK (Commonwealth Union) – Alcohol has long been known to have both short-term and long-term effects on health, and excessive or prolonged alcohol consumption has been noted to lead to various negative consequences. Among the many conditions that are destructive to health caused by excessive alcohol consumption liver damage is one of the most well-known effects of excessive alcohol consumption. Alcohol is metabolized in the liver, and heavy drinking can lead to conditions such as fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, and cirrhosis. Cardiovascular conditions are another long-term alcohol abuse condition that can increase the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases such as high blood pressure, irregular heart rhythms, and heart failure.
A new study has found that alcohol consumption raises the risks of more than 60 diseases in Chinese men, which consist of many diseases not associated with alcohol on prior occasions. The study was conducted by scientists from the Oxford Population Health and Peking University, which appeared in Nature Medicine.
Estimations indicate alcohol use is linked to around 3 million deaths across the globe every year. Researchers indicate that the figure keeps rising for many low- and middle-income nations like China. The negative impact of heavy drinking on certain diseases like liver cirrhosis, stroke, and many types of cancer has been well documented, however, very few studies have systematically evaluated the effects of alcohol consumption on an extensive range of diseases for the same population.
The study demonstrates that alcohol consumption elevates the risks of 61 diseases in males in China. This consists of many non-fatal diseases not recognized as being alcohol linked as a result of limited prior evidence. The findings of the research showed the influence that alcohol consumption may have on the risk of disease in populations across the globe.
The scientists utilized data from the China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB), a joint study of more than 512,000 adults recruited in 2004-08 from 10 diverse urban and rural locations all over China. Study participants did interviews regarding their lifestyle and behaviors, which consisted of detailed alcohol consumption patterns. Around a third of males, but just 2 percent of females, drank alcohol on a regular basis. The scientists comprehensively evaluated the health impacts of alcohol consumption on more than 200 different diseases in males marked via association with hospital records over a period of roughly 12 years. A significant factor was that, they also conducted a genetic analysis for the verification to find out if alcohol intake was responsible for resulting in disease.
Pek Kei Im, a Research Fellow at Oxford Population Health as well as a lead author for the paper, says “Alcohol consumption is adversely related to a much wider range of diseases than has previously been established, and our findings show these associations are likely to be causal.”
Associate Professor, Iona Millwood, from Oxford Population Health as well as a senior author of the study, says “It is becoming clear that the harmful use of alcohol is one of the most important risk factors for poor health, both in China and globally.”
Professor Zhengming Chen, Richard Peto Professor of Epidemiology at Oxford Population Health who is also a senior author as well as CKB co-PI, says “This study provides important causal evidence of the scale of alcohol-related harms, which is critical to inform prevention strategies in different countries.”
Researchers indicated that East Asian populations, had common genetic variants that greatly lower alcohol tolerability, as they bring about a highly unpleasant flushing reaction following alcohol consumption. Individuals that have these genetic variants are likely to consume lower amounts of alcohol and due to these genetic variants not being associated with other lifestyle factors, the scientists were able to utilize this information to evaluate with greater accuracy the cause-and-effect association of alcohol with a wide range of conditions.
