2024-10-07 21:53:11
Alcohol is a cell poison – and can damage various organs. New studies show that the heart can also suffer, even in young, fit people.
Scientists have long warned that excessive alcohol consumption can damage the heart. A new Munich study now shows that excessive drinking can have a worrying effect on the heart, even in young, healthy people. Several partygoers were diagnosed with cardiac arrhythmias.
“Clinically relevant arrhythmias (cardiac arrhythmias, editor’s note) occurred in over five percent of the otherwise healthy participants, predominantly in the recovery phase,” says Moritz Sinner from the research team at the Medical Clinic and Polyclinic I of the LMU Clinic, summarizing the results . “From a cardiological perspective, our study provides another negative effect of acute excessive alcohol consumption on health.”
The researchers analyzed data from more than 200 young men and women who regularly went out to consume multiple alcoholic drinks. During the study, they had peak blood alcohol levels of up to 2.5 per mille. The results of the MunichBREW-II study were published in the specialist magazine “European Heart Journal”.
The study participants had their heart rhythm monitored using an electrocardiogram (ECG) for 48 hours. The researchers differentiated between, among other things, the initial value before drinking, the drinking phase and the recovery phase. There were also two control phases. The alcohol intake during the drinking phase led to an increasingly rapid pulse with more than 100 heartbeats per minute. These abnormalities in the ECG occurred as early as a blood alcohol level of 1.1.
Alcohol, it seems, can have a profound effect on the processes of the heart, the researchers conclude. The long-term and harmful effects of alcohol-related cardiac arrhythmias on heart health remain the subject of further research.
The team from the Medical Clinic and Polyclinic I of the LMU Clinic started the MunichBREW-I study at the Munich Oktoberfest in 2015. At that time, the doctors led by Moritz Sinner and Stefan Brunner had already linked excessive alcohol consumption to cardiac arrhythmias – but only examined a snapshot in the ECG.
Other research also shows negative effects on the heart. A study published a few years ago by the University Heart and Vascular Center at the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) showed that even small amounts of alcohol consumed regularly can trigger atrial fibrillation – even in healthy people without previous illnesses.