Binge-drinking may explain why alcohol seems to affect the health of people differently, researchers say today.
Consuming alcohol in large quantities at once nearly doubles the risk of developing heart disease, according to a study which compares the UK with France.
Experts said the findings confirm the standard health advice – that daily consumption of alcohol should be limited.
Amy Thompson, of the British Heart Foundation, said: "This reinforces what we already know – that drinking high levels of alcohol can be harmful to your heart.
"It’s important to avoid binge drinking and it’s better to have a small amount of alcohol regularly rather than large amounts in one go.
"If you do drink, it’s important to keep within the recommended limits. Women should not regularly drink more than two to three units a day and men should not regularly drink more than three to four units a day."
Researchers led by Dr Jean-Bernard Ruidavet, of Toulouse University, France, compared the risk in Northern Ireland and France.
They analysed figures on weekly alcohol intake and binge drinking from 9,778 male participants who were healthy and aged 50 to 59 years, and lived in either Belfast in Northern Ireland or Lille, Strasbourg, or Toulouse in France.
Sixty per cent of the men from Belfast and ninety per cent of the French men drank at least once a week. The rate of "binge drinkers" was nine per cent in Belfast and 0.5 per cent in France.
Over the ten year follow-up, seven per cent of participants had heart disease – either heart attack, death from heart disease, or angina (severe chest pain). Overall, the risk of heart attack or death from heart disease was roughly doubled for binge drinkers compared with regular drinkers.
Risk was 76 per cent higher in Belfast than in France, but this was reduced to nine per cent higher once drinking patterns were taken into account. Wine drinking was linked with a lower risk of heart disease in both countries.
On the website of the British Medical Journal, the authors write: "Regular and moderate alcohol intake throughout the week, the typical pattern in middle aged men in France, is associated with a low risk of ischaemic heart disease, whereas the binge drinking pattern more prevalent in Belfast confers a higher risk."
In an editorial, Dr Annie Britton of University College London, UK, adds: "The increased risk of heart disease associated with binge drinking is just one of many detrimental outcomes; not just to the individual’s health but also to society."
Britton, A. Alcohol and heart disease. The British Medical Journal, 2010;341:c5957.
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