Alcohol consumption, specific alcoholic beverages, and abdominal aortic aneurysm.

BACKGROUND

Studies investigating the role of alcohol consumption in the development of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) are scarce. We aimed to examine associations between total alcohol consumption and specific alcoholic beverages and the hazard of AAA.

METHODS AND RESULTS

The study population was made up of 44 715 men from the Cohort of Swedish Men and 35 569 women from the Swedish Mammography Cohort who were 46 to 84 years of age at baseline in 1998. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate hazard ratios with 95% confidence intervals for the associations between alcohol consumption, assessed through a food frequency questionnaire, and AAA, identified by means of linkage to the Swedish Inpatient Register and the Swedish Vascular Registry (Swedvasc). Over the 14-year follow-up until December 2011 (1 019 954 person-years), AAAs occurred in 1020 men and 194 women. Compared with the consumption of 1 glass of alcohol per week (12 g of ethanol), the hazard ratio of AAA among men who consumed 10 glasses per week was 0.80 (95% confidence interval, 0.68-0.94). The corresponding hazard ratio among women who consumed 5 glasses per week was 0.57 (95% confidence interval, 0.40-0.82). Among participants free from cardiovascular disease, total alcohol consumption did not seem to be associated with hazard of the disease. The most commonly consumed alcoholic beverages, beer among men and wine among women, were inversely associated, whereas no association was observed for liquor.

CONCLUSIONS

Moderate alcohol consumption, specifically wine and beer, was associated with a lower hazard of abdominal aortic aneurysm. The associations between higher doses of alcohol and risk of the disease remain unknown.