Alcohol consumption and risk of ischemic stroke: The Framingham Study

Stroke is a major cause of death in the United States. The association between alcohol consumption and ischemic stroke (IS) remains controversial.

We used data collected on participants in the Framingham Study to assess the association between total alcohol intake and type of alcoholic beverage and development of IS, overall and according to age.

A total of 196 men and 245 women developed IS during three 10-year follow-up periods. In the categories of never drinkers, drinkers of 0.1 to 11, 12 to 23, and > or =24 g/d of ethanol (a "typical drink" is approximately 12 g of ethanol), and former drinkers of 0.1 to 11 and > or =12 g/d, crude incidence rates of IS were 6.5, 5.9, 4.9, 5.0, 6.7, and 17.8 cases per 1000 person-years, respectively, for men and 5.9, 4.1, 4.1, 4.3, 8.3, and 7.1, respectively, for women. Overall, compared with never drinkers in a multivariate Cox regression, current alcohol consumption was not related significantly to IS in either sex. Former drinking of > or =12 g/d of alcohol was associated with a 2.4 times higher risk of IS among men but not among women. When stratified by age, alcohol intake was associated with lower risk of IS among subjects aged 60 to 69 years. In beverage-specific analysis, only wine consumption was related to a decreased risk of IS.

Our data showed no significant association between total alcohol and IS overall but showed a protective effect of alcohol among subjects aged 60 to 69 years.