Women of All Ages: Stop Drinking Now

In a new American College of Cardiology study, out today, even moderate drinking in women of all ages has been shown to drastically increase the risk for cardiovascular disease.

One glass of wine a day is good for you: that’s what the women and men of my generation¹ were told as we came of age and made our way out into the world. But then, last March, a year ago almost to the day, JAMA issued a report that showed that even moderate drinking not only does not decrease mortality, it actually increases the risk of death in both women and men.

Oops.

Well, this weekend, an even bigger doozy will be presented at the American College of Cardiology. Dr. Jamal Rana, cardiologist, and Dr. Stacy Sterling, Senior Research Scientist with The Kaiser Permanente Division of Research, wanted to understand the effects of binge drinking on the heart in people of both sexes between the ages of 18 and 65. What they found, vis a vis women specifically—after studying 430,000 people who did not have heart disease at the beginning of the study but who drank in both mild, moderate, and excess amounts—was, in Dr. Rana’s own words, “surprising.” Even the young women in their study who drank moderately, meaning a little over one glass of alcohol a week, were significantly more likely to develop coronary heart disease than those who drank less.

“When it comes to binge drinking, both men and women with excess alcohol consumption had a higher risk of heart disease,” said Rana. “For women, we find consistently higher risk even without binge drinking. I wasn’t expecting these results among women in this lower age group because we usually see increased risk for heart disease among older women. It was definitely surprising.”

Here are the facts. Do with them what you will. What I did, after reading them, was to immediately cut, paste, and email them to my 27-year-old daughter:

All drinkers, male and female, were divided into four groups: low (1-2 drinks a week for both sexes); moderate (3-7 drinks a week for women, 3-14 for men); and high (more than 8 drinks a week for women, more than 15 a week for men.) Women in that latter category, the ones who drank more than 8 glasses of alcohol a week—but who were not binge drinkers—had a shocking 45% higher risk of heart disease, no matter their age, compared with those reporting low intake, and a 29% higher risk than those in the moderate category. For binge drinkers, the statistics were far more grim. Binge drinking women of all ages were 68% more likely to develop heart disease than those who drank moderately.

Women process alcohol differently from men, so I’m glad to see this data so well disaggregated. Let it be a wakeup call, women, no matter your age. And to any doctors reading this, please consider the alcohol consumption of your patients to be a major piece of the puzzle in assessing their risk of cardiovascular disease, just like you would with their smoking habits. “When it comes to heart disease,” said Dr. Rana, “the number one thing that comes to mind is smoking, and we do not think about alcohol as one of the vital signs. I think a lot more awareness is needed, and alcohol should be part of routine health assessments moving forward.”

1. X, not to be confused in any way with the racist, sexist, right-leaning, conflict-stoking platform owned by a sex-addicted megalomaniac.