The French are not the last to appreciate alcoholic festivities. Between aperitifs, afterwork and evenings, the alcohol diary can quickly get busy. Now, it’s no longer a secret: alcohol is not our friend. It has a long list of harmful effects, some of which are irreversible. To preserve your health, you should not wait until you are old to think about it, especially since according to a recent study, drinking during your younger years increases the risk of heart problems.
In France, heart failure currently affects 1.5 million people; each year, it causes 200,000 hospitalizations. Most patients are people aged over 60, but this type of pathology increasingly affects people under 30. According to a team of German researchers, excessive alcohol consumption is surely linked to this phenomenon: it can disrupt the normal rhythm of the heart to the point of causing cardiac arrhythmias, including in the youngest. ScienceAlert nous and this plus on the subject.
Holiday Heart Syndrome (name given to variations in heart rate during alcohol consumption) has been known for decades. But recently, the research team looked at the issue much more assiduously, monitoring partygoers in real time as they drank and tracking the consequences at every step. Before a night of heavy alcohol consumption, 193 volunteers received mobile electrocardiogram monitors to monitor their heart rate during the consumption period and the recovery phase.
Participants’ peak blood alcohol content averaged 1.4 grams per kilogram. Remember that beyond the 1.5 gram mark, 30% of the population would go into an alcoholic coma, according to Doctor Philippe Batel. Regarding the results of the experiment, “arrhythmias – when the heart rate varies for no apparent reason – were detected in more than 5% of otherwise healthy participants, and mainly during the recovery phase”explains German cardiologist Moritz Sinner.
Scary examples
As for the cardiac arrhythmias observed in ten participants, they included atrial fibrillation (abnormal beats in the ear chambers) and ventricular tachycardias (the same phenomenon, but at the level of the ventricles). Both result in a disordered and irregular contraction of the heartbeat.
For example, one of the participants, a 26-year-old man with no previous health history, developed a case of atrial fibrillation about thirteen hours after stopping drinking. This phase lasted 79 minutes. And that’s not all: four participants suffered from a heart blockagethat is to say a slowing of the heart. In the most severe case, a healthy 29-year-old woman suffered a 15.4-second freeze during the recovery phase.
How to explain this effect? To be honest, it’s still unclear. We know that alcohol consumption affects the body’s autonomic nervous systemwhich directs involuntary functions like breathing and digestion. This leads to increased heart rate and stress levels, but researchers don’t yet know what the consequences might be for overall health or long-term disease risk.
Any change in the normal rhythm of the heart can be potentially dangerous; It is essential that future studies examine in more detail the reasons for these changes and the potential consequences of them. This is another good reason to always drink in moderation: perhaps you will think twice before agreeing to go for a pint with colleagues.
Source: www.slate.fr
