Alcohol Effects on the Heart | YMyHealth

How often do you have an alcoholic beverage?

Whether it’s only when you are out with friends who also get a drink, at a happy hour event where you are trying to establish professional connections, or you have a glass of wine regularly at home, alcohol will affect your heart and other parts of your body in one or more ways.

How much depends on how often you drink, how many drinks you have, and what percentage of alcohol is in your beverage.

Interventional and preventive cardiologist Heather Shenkman, MD, has seen and treated hearts on both sides of the spectrum–before they develop heart disease and after.

“I decided to go into cardiology because I felt like it was an area where I could make an impact not only because we can prevent illness through lifestyle and with medication, but also something where we can take action if somebody does have a heart attack. We can actually open up a blocked artery and save a life,” Shenkman said.

She shares with us how when it comes to drinking alcohol there are factors to consider for your health short- and long-term, important distinctions to note in the research out there about alcohol’s “protective effects” like red wine, and ways to make smart choices when you do choose to drink.

Main Effects of Alcohol on the Heart

Whether you have only one alcoholic drink or more than one, alcohol has the power to affect your heart in multiple ways. In fact, Shenkman tells me alcohol in any form is technically, “a direct toxin to the heart.”

So, what can alcohol do to your heart? Drinking that glass of wine, beer, or martini can:

Raise your blood pressure and increase your risk of hypertension (high blood pressure)
Increase your risk of developing arrhythmias (irregular heartbeat). One in particular called atrial fibrillation is common, Shekman told us.
Increase your risk of developing alcoholic cardiomyopathy (weakened heart muscle) and heart failure
Increase your risk of developing a stroke

“The effects of alcohol are very dependent on how frequently you're drinking and if you're somebody who goes out on a social occasion and has an alcoholic beverage once a week or once a month. It's not going to be anything that's going to make a significant impact on your current health,” Shenkman said.

“But if you're somebody who binge drinks and that is considered to be four drinks in a setting for a woman or five drinks in a setting for men, you definitely are setting yourself up for consequences both short term and long term.”

Q&A with Cardiologist Dr. Heather Shenkman

What are the short and long-term effects of alcohol on heart health?

In the short term, alcohol definitely does raise your blood pressure.

Another consequence is that it has a lot of calories in it. If you're concerned about your weight, drinking large amounts of alcohol can make it harder to lose weight, and can even lead to weight gain.

The other thing is that alcohol does relax you and may lead you to make choices that you otherwise wouldn't make. Eat foods that you otherwise would not choose in your healthy diet.

And if you consume a lot of alcohol in one sitting, you increase your risk of developing an arrhythmia, mainly atrial fibrillation (an irregular and often rapid heart rhythm that can lead to blood clots in the heart). Sometimes we call that “holiday heart” in that you drink excessively and then end up sick with an arrhythmia

In the long term, it also does increase the risk of atrial fibrillation developing and a weakened heart muscle. People who drink very heavily over a prolonged period of time can actually develop something called an alcoholic cardiomyopathy, which is a weakening of the heart muscle which can lead to congestive heart failure.

There's also effects of alcohol and other parts of the body increasing risk of certain kinds of cancers and increasing the risk of liver disease.

So, there are many potential consequences to excessive alcohol over the course of the years.

Heather Shenkman, MD, FACC, is an interventional and preventive cardiologist practicing in Tarzana, California. While she treats patients who have all stages of heart disease with complex procedures, such as angioplasties, she also works with patients to reduce their risk of developing heart disease by encouraging patients to incorporate plant-based foods and exercise into their lifestyles.

Learn more about Dr. Shenkman and her practice here.

Does moderate alcohol intake protect the heart like some studies suggest?

Studies that look at moderate alcohol intake, they certainly are not controlled for other factors. So, they're not controlled for whether somebody who is drinking moderately also is drinking because they have people that they are social with–because we know making social connections is also beneficial for heart health–as opposed to people who stick to themselves. These studies are not controlled for people who drink alcohol or red wine in particular who may be more likely to be exercising and more likely to eat their fruits and vegetables every day.

Are some alcoholic drinks better for the heart than others?

So, there is some literature that suggests that maybe drinking red wine can have beneficial effects on the heart, but when we study alcohol and wine, we can't really do a controlled study where we control for alcohol being the one and only factor that we study.

We have to keep in mind what people who drink red wine also do? Are they more likely to exercise? Do they have a healthier diet? Do they have more social connections? These are things that also impact heart health.

There really is no reason why somebody should start drinking alcohol if they're looking to improve their heart health, any benefits that you think that you're going to get from alcohol you can get from other foods. If you're looking for antioxidants from a red wine and you can get the same things from grapes or grape juice, you do not have to drink alcohol.

What symptoms related to heart issues should people watch out for if they drink?

I think anybody should be mindful of any type of symptoms that they could have when it comes to the heart. Certainly, if someone is experiencing chest pain with exertion, shortness of breath with exertion that doesn't seem like it's appropriate, palpitations or heart racing, lightheadedness, dizziness, swelling of the ankles or the belly—these are all symptoms that can be related to heart issues.

How much alcohol is safe to drink for heart health?

Good question. In general, the recommendation is that moderate alcohol consumption is no more than one alcoholic beverage per day.

But that said, there is a relationship that the more alcohol you drink, the higher your risk of health complications are as a consequence, and there really is no amount of alcohol at which you don't have increased risk when looking at a study.

Now, that's not to say that nobody should ever drink. That's not necessarily a reasonable expectation. I think that if there is somebody who has an issue with alcoholism, who simply does not have that ability to control themselves around alcohol for whatever reason, that is a person should who should have zero, but for the majority of us who are not alcoholics to have an alcoholic beverage every so often, I think is reasonably safe.

Tips to Minimize Alcohol's Effects on the Heart

The next time you go out and are deciding whether or not to order a drink, keep these tips in mind (a combination of our research and Dr. Shenkman’s recommendations):

Don’t drink on a daily basis
Only have one drink or two maximum when you go out
Avoid binge and heavy drinking
Stay hydrated and alternate alcoholic drinks with water
Don't drink on an empty stomach
Monitor blood pressure regularly
Limit intake if you have a heart condition or family history of heart disease

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Alcohol’s Effects on the Heart According to a Cardiologist