Sex-Specific Associations of Risk-Based Alcohol Drinking Level with Cardiovascular Risk Factors and the 10-Year Cardiovascular Disease Risk Scores

Background: To assess sex-specific associations between risk-based alcohol drinking levels and the 10-year cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk scores and cardiovascular (CV) risk factors. Methods: Data from 9,995 Koreans (4,249 men, 5,746 women), aged 40 to 79 years who did not have CVD and participated in the 2011 to 2013 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, were used to assess risk-based alcohol drinking levels in the past year (no drinking, drinking at low risk, and drinking at risk) categorized by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, components of the 10-year CVD risk scores using the Adult Treatment Panel III risk score and the 10-year hard atherosclerotic CVD risk score, CV risk factors, and confounding factors (age, smoking status, body mass index, educational attainment, income level, and physical activity). Results: Drinking levels had positive associations with blood pressure and levels of glucose, triglycerides, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and inverse associations with levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and non-HDL-C and ratio of total cholesterol (TC) to HDL-C in men, while higher drinking levels were associated with higher HDL-C levels and lower ratio of TC to HDL-C in women after adjusting for confounding factors (p for trend < 0.001). With respect to the 10-year CVD risk scores, higher drinking levels were associated with lower scores in both sexes (p for trend < 0.001). Conclusions: Risk-based drinking levels were more likely to have dose-dependent associations with CV risk factors in men than in women and had inverse relationships with 10-year CVD risk in both men and women. Copyright