Alcohol Could Help Your Heart by Reducing Stress

Drinking in moderation has long been associated with better heart health, but researchers aren't exactly sure why. The health consequences of alcohol are more obvious and include a higher risk of cancer, neurological aging, and more. So why would alcohol's impact on the heart be different?

In a recent study that was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital provided one explanation for why alcohol consumption may be associated with better heart health: it consistently lowers stress signals in the brain, which lessens the load on the heart.

First, the researchers examined data from more than 50,000 individuals in the Mass General Brigham Biobank, a sizable research database established by the hospital, and found that light-to-moderate drinking was in fact related with significantly lower cardiovascular disease risk in individuals. They were able to determine that this effect was not brought on by people's socioeconomic statuses, levels of activity, or even genetics—factors that are challenging to control for in smaller research. They looked at the brain scans of the patients and found that something else seemed to be at work. These revealed that consuming alcohol lowers stress levels in the brain over the long term, which reduces the stress put on the heart even days after the person has had their last drink.

The stress network in the brain works similarly to a tug-of-war. Amygdala, which regulates emotions, is located on one side, and prefrontal cortex, which regulates executive function, is located on the other. The prefrontal cortex can assist in preventing the alarm bell from ringing throughout the body, especially in the heart, when the amygdala sends out fear signals during stressful situations. Dr. Ahmed Tawakol, a research author and co-director of the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, claims that alcohol use is known to lessen the alarm effect of the amygdala. However, we put a different question to the researchers: "Does it have long-lasting effects on those systems?"

The team examined brain scans from more than 1,000 study participants and found that while prefrontal cortex activity was normal when alcohol was not present, light-to-moderate drinkers reported a persistent lowering of amygdala activity. This slowing of the amygdala's activity was related with a 22% reduction in cardiovascular disease, albeit the data did not allow the researchers to determine whether or whether this effect on the amygdala eventually faded if people quit drinking totally.

The effect increased when the researchers focused on light-to-moderate drinkers with a history of anxiety, a condition marked by an overactive stress network. "People with prior anxiety had a 40% reduction in heart disease," claims Tawakol, as opposed to the 22% reduction. "That provided us with support for what our imaging revealed."

"I'm sure that many people will hear that and immediately think, 'Well, I'm worried. I suppose there's an advantage, therefore that's why I drink, he continues. However, there is no amount of alcohol that is safe.

There are more effective ways to use this stress-reduction pathway than alcohol. One is exercise, which Tawakol is now researching, and claims has the same impact by increasing prefrontal cortex activity rather than decreasing amygdala activity. "The brain can explain a significant portion of the benefits of exercise," he claims. He claims that getting enough sleep has a comparable effect.

Tawakol's ultimate objective is to discover a safe pharmacological means of reducing amygdala activity. since Tawakol points out, "It's not enough for us to simply say sleep better and exercise more," since we've been saying that and its benefits are limited. We need to look for strategies that genuinely work now that we've identified a pathway that, when blocked, doubles the risk reduction of cardiovascular disease.