Excessive young drinkers may face heart problems later

WEDNESDAY, June 27, 2018 (HealthDay News) – People who are partying in their twenties might end up paying for later with a higher risk of heart disease, a new study suggests.

Young adults who drink drinks are more likely to have heart risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels and higher blood sugar levels, the researchers found.

"They engage in behavior that can result in something more than a bad hangover," said Principal Investigator Mariann Piano. Sh is a professor at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing in Nashville, Tennessee.

Excessive consumption of alcohol has been defined as five or more glbades for men on one occasion, and four or more glbades for women, said Piano. People are frequent binge drinkers when this happens more than 12 times a year.

The Piano team is focused on young adults.

"The ubiquity, intensity and regularity of excessive alcohol consumption among young people today is higher than those of previous generations," said Mr. Piano.

The new study badyzed data on more than 4,700 adults aged 18 to 45 in the US National Health and Nutrition Survey.

One in four men and one in 10 women reported frequent drinking, the researchers found. Occasional drinking bouts occurred in 29% of men and 25% of women.

The study could not prove the cause and effect, but young men who ate frequently to drink had higher systolic blood pressure – the pressure inside the vessels blood during a heartbeat. Male binge drinking also had higher cholesterol levels.

Young women who drink alcohol tend to have higher levels of glucose in their blood, which increases their risk of diabetes, Piano said.

These results show that young drinking parties could prepare for future heart problems, said Dr. Richard Becker, director of the Heart, Lungs and Vessels Institute at the University of Cincinnati.

"High blood pressure and high cholesterol are potent risk factors for cardiovascular events, including heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure, and death," Becker said. "They represent global health problems of an unmatched proportion that not only continues to increase but are detected at a younger age."