Harmful Alcohol Consumption in Patients with Heart Disease: A Risk Analysis by Lifestyle Behavior – The Brazilian PROSA Project (Projeto Saúde e Álcool)

Abstract

Background

Moderate alcohol intake appears to have a protective cardiovascular effect, whereas harmful alcohol consumption (HAC) is associated with a high rate of chronic diseases and mortality. The amount of alcohol intake has been associated with lifestyle behaviors; however, this relationship has not been assessed in patients with heart disease (HD).

Objective

To evaluate the association between lifestyle behavior and HAC in HD patients.

Methods

This is an observational study that included one group of patients with HD and one group of volunteers designed to assess the association of HAC with lifestyle behavior using a score of lifestyle behavior (the LBS score). We assessed alcohol consumption using the AUDIT-C test. LBS was developed by assigning 1 point to each variable – smoking; overweight or obese (body mass index ≥24.9); anxiety; depression and lack of physical activity, and classified into healthy (0/1 point), regular (2/3 points), or unhealthy (4/5 points). Statistical analysis adopted as a significance level p-value <0.05.

Results

The study included 1,999 patients with HD and 2,081 volunteers. Regression analysis controlled for age and sex, revealed that regular and unhealthy LBS are independent predictors of HAC (OR= 1.35, p=0.04 and OR= 1.76, p=0.001, respectively) in HD patients, similar as volunteers. Good discrimination capability of the regression model was reported in the temporal validation (ROC 0.80). Furthermore, LBS improvements were associated with HAC reductions (p=0.02).

Conclusions

This study showed that risk assessment for HAC using a new lifestyle score is a reliable predictor in HD patients. Also, it was observed that improving lifestyle behavior may help to reduce HAC.