More Than Two Drinks Per Day Can Increase Your Risk of Stroke

According to a new study, drinking more than 2 alcoholic drinks each day in middle-age increases a person’s risk of stroke more than typical risk factors such as high blood pressure and diabetes.

Researchers used data gathered between 1967 and 2010 from 11,644 individuals from the Swedish Twin Registry to compare the effects of heavy drinking on risk of stroke. Heavy drinking was defined as 2 or more drinks per day and light drinking as less than 0.5 drinks per day.  

Results demonstrated that heavy drinking increased the risk of stroke by 34% in comparison to light drinking.  The heavy drinkers were also more likely to have a stroke 5 years earlier than their counterparts, regardless of genetics or other factors.  In addition, middle-aged heavy drinkers exhibited a risk of stroke comparable to individuals with high blood pressure and diabetes.  Moreover, the study found that almost 30% of participants had suffered a stroke and by age 75, blood pressure and diabetes were regarded as the main cause of stroke. 

“Among identical twin pairs, siblings who had a stroke drank more than their siblings who hadn't had a stroke, suggesting that mid-life drinking raises stroke risks regardless of genetics and early lifestyle.”

Not only does regular heavy drinking increase the risk of stroke, it also affects blood pressure and causes various health complications.  

Effects of Alcohol:

Drinking too much – on a single occasion or over time – can take a serious toll on your health.  Here’s how alcohol can affect your body:

Heart: Drinking a lot over a long time or too much on a single occasion can damage the heart, causing problems including:

• Cardiomyopathy – Stretching and drooping of heart muscle
• Arrhythmias – Irregular heart beat
• Stroke
• High blood pressure  

* Research also shows that drinking moderate amounts of alcohol may protect healthy adults from developing coronary heart disease.

Liver: Heavy drinking takes a toll on the liver, and can lead to a variety of problems and liver inflammations including:

• Steatosis, or fatty liver
• Alcoholic hepatitis
• Fibrosis
• Cirrhosis

Pancreas: Alcohol causes the pancreas to produce toxic substances that can eventually lead to pancreatitis, a dangerous inflammation and swelling of the blood vessels in the pancreas that prevents proper digestion. 

Cancer: Drinking too much alcohol can increase your risk of developing certain cancers, including cancers of the:

• Mouth
• Esophagus
• Throat
• Liver
• Breast

Immune System: Drinking too much can weaken your immune system, making your body a much easier target for disease.  Chronic drinkers are more liable to contract diseases like pneumonia and tuberculosis than people who do not drink too much.  Drinking a lot on a single occasion slows your body’s ability to ward off infections – even up to 24 hours after getting drunk.

Brain: Alcohol interferes with the brain’s communication pathways, and can affect the way the brain looks and works. These disruptions can change mood and behavior, and make it harder to think clearly and move with coordination.  

People who have been drinking large amounts of alcohol for long periods of time run the risk of developing serious and persistent changes in the brain. Damage may be a result of the direct effects of alcohol on the brain or may result indirectly, from a poor general health status or from severe liver disease.

Up to 80 percent of alcoholics, however, have a deficiency in thiamine, and some of these people will go on to develop serious brain disorders such as Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome (WKS).  WKS is a disease that consists of two separate syndromes, a short–lived and severe condition called Wernicke’s encephalopathy and a long–lasting and debilitating condition known as Korsakoff’s psychosis.

The symptoms of Wernicke’s encephalopathy include mental confusion, paralysis of the nerves that move the eyes (i.e., oculomotor disturbances), and difficulty with muscle coordination. For example, patients with Wernicke’s encephalopathy may be too confused to find their way out of a room or may not even be able to walk. 

Approximately 80 to 90 percent of alcoholics with Wernicke’s encephalopathy also develop Korsakoff’s psychosis, a chronic and debilitating syndrome characterized by persistent learning and memory problems. Patients with Korsakoff’s psychosis are forgetful and quickly frustrated and have difficulty with walking and coordination. Although these patients have problems remembering old information (i.e., retrograde amnesia), it is their difficulty in “laying down” new information (i.e., anterograde amnesia) that is the most striking. 

Heavy drinking in middle-age may increase stroke risk more than traditional factors
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

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