Alcohol consumption in the general population is associated with structural changes in multiple organ systems
- University of Ioannina, Greece
- Imperial College London, United Kingdom
- Brunel University London, United Kingdom
Abstract
Background: Excessive alcohol consumption is associated with damage to various organs, but its multi-organ effects have not been characterised across the usual range of alcohol drinking in a large general population sample.
Methods: We assessed global effect sizes of alcohol consumption on quantitative magnetic resonance imaging phenotypic measures of the brain, heart, aorta and liver of UK-Biobank participants who reported drinking alcohol.
Results: We found a monotonic association of higher alcohol consumption with lower normalised brain volume across the range of alcohol intakes (–1.7´10-3±0.76´10-3 per doubling of alcohol consumption, P=3.0´10-14). Alcohol consumption also was associated directly with measures of left ventricular mass index and left ventricular and atrial volume indices. Liver fat increased by a mean of 0.15% per doubling of alcohol consumption.
Conclusions: Our results imply that there is not a 'safe threshold' below which there are no toxic effects of alcohol. Current public health guidelines concerning alcohol consumption may need to be revisited.
Funding: See acknowledgements
Data availability
For this project, UK Biobank has granted access to our team through approved applications with ID #13375 and #18545. Individual-level data cannot be shared with researchers who are not registered as collaborators (https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/enable-your-research/manage-your-project). Guidance on how to apply for the various types of UK Biobank can be found in the following link https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/enable-your-research/apply-for-access.
Article and author information
Author details
Evangelos Evangelou
Paul M Matthews MD, PhD
Funding
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: In UK Biobank, ethical approval for data collection was received from the North-West Multi-centre Research Ethics Committee (REC reference: 11/NW/0382) and the research was carried out in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki of the World Medical Association. No additional ethical approval was required for the analyses of the data.
Copyright
© 2021, Evangelou et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Alcohol consumption in the general population is associated with structural changes in multiple organ systems
eLife 10:e65325.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.65325
Further reading
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- Cancer Biology
- Epidemiology and Global Health
Cancer is considered a risk factor for COVID-19 mortality, yet several countries have reported that deaths with a primary code of cancer remained within historic levels during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we further elucidate the relationship between cancer mortality and COVID-19 on a population level in the US. We compared pandemic-related mortality patterns from underlying and multiple cause (MC) death data for six types of cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s. Any pandemic-related changes in coding practices should be eliminated by study of MC data. Nationally in 2020, MC cancer mortality rose by only 3% over a pre-pandemic baseline, corresponding to ~13,600 excess deaths. Mortality elevation was measurably higher for less deadly cancers (breast, colorectal, and hematological, 2–7%) than cancers with a poor survival rate (lung and pancreatic, 0–1%). In comparison, there was substantial elevation in MC deaths from diabetes (37%) and Alzheimer’s (19%). To understand these differences, we simulated the expected excess mortality for each condition using COVID-19 attack rates, life expectancy, population size, and mean age of individuals living with each condition. We find that the observed mortality differences are primarily explained by differences in life expectancy, with the risk of death from deadly cancers outcompeting the risk of death from COVID-19.
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- Epidemiology and Global Health
Background:
The associations of age at diagnosis of breast cancer with incident myocardial infarction (MI) and heart failure (HF) remain unexamined. Addressing this problem could promote understanding of the cardiovascular impact of breast cancer.
Methods:
Data were obtained from the UK Biobank. Information on the diagnosis of breast cancer, MI, and HF was collected at baseline and follow-ups (median = 12.8 years). The propensity score matching method and Cox proportional hazards models were employed.
Results:
A total of 251,277 female participants (mean age: 56.8 ± 8.0 years), of whom 16,241 had breast cancer, were included. Among breast cancer participants, younger age at diagnosis (per 10-year decrease) was significantly associated with elevated risks of MI (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.36, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.19–1.56, p<0.001) and HF (HR = 1.31, 95% CI 1.18–1.46, p<0.001). After propensity score matching, breast cancer patients with younger diagnosis age had significantly higher risks of MI and HF than controls without breast cancer.
Conclusions:
Younger age at diagnosis of breast cancer was associated with higher risks of incident MI and HF, underscoring the necessity to pay additional attention to the cardiovascular health of breast cancer patients diagnosed at younger age to conduct timely interventions to attenuate the subsequent risks of incident cardiovascular diseases.
Funding:
This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82373665 and 81974490), the Nonprofit Central Research Institute Fund of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (2021-RC330-001), and the 2022 China Medical Board-open competition research grant (22-466).
