A study from South Korea investigated how a person’s drinking habits and their overall lifestyle work together to affect the risk of sudden cardiac arrest. Drawing on a multi-hospital research project in South Korea called CAPTURES (Cardiac Arrest Pursuit Trial with Unique Registration and Epidemiologic Surveillance), the researchers compared 961 people who had suffered a cardiac arrest with 1,891 similar people who had not, and all participants reported that they currently consumed alcohol. They sorted people by how often they drank (low, moderate, or high) and gave each person a “Healthy Lifestyle Score,” a simple rating built from seven everyday habits: not smoking, staying physically active, getting good sleep, and eating fish, fruits, and vegetables while limiting red meat.
They found that drinking more frequently and having a lower healthy-lifestyle score were each associated with a higher risk, but the danger was greatest when unhealthy habits were present together. In other words, frequent drinking combined with an otherwise unhealthy lifestyle carried far more risk than either factor alone. To illustrate the potential impact of prevention, the researchers estimated that improving drinking habits by itself could potentially prevent about 16% of these cardiac arrests, while addressing drinking together with the other lifestyle habits could potentially prevent nearly 59%. The study indicated habits do not act in isolation, and tackling several of them at once may protect the heart far more than focusing on any single one.
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SOURCE: Journal of the American Heart Association
Summary written by Adarsh Kabekkodu, SCAF intern