Binge drinking linked to higher heart risk

TOULOUSE, France, Nov. 25 (UPI) -- The weekend binge drinking in Belfast may account for the high Irish heart disease rate, researchers in France suggest.

Dr. Jean-Bernard Ruidavets of Toulouse University studied the drinking patterns in Northern Ireland and France and found middle-age men in France and Belfast consumed almost identical amounts of alcohol during a week.

However, in Belfast men tended to drink alcohol over one or two days rather than regularly throughout the week as men do in France, Ruidavets says.

Over a 10-year period, Ruidavets and colleagues assessed the alcohol consumption of 9,758 men from three cities in France -- Lille, Strasbourg and Toulouse -- and Belfast.

At the beginning of the study in 1991, all the participants -- ages 50-59 -- were free of heart disease.

The study participants in both countries were divided into never drinkers, former drinkers, regular drinkers and binge drinkers. They were questioned on their drinking habits, and their hearts and health were checked.

The study, published in the British Medical Journal, showed that the men who "binge" drink -- four to five drinks in one day -- had nearly twice the risk of heart attack or death from heart disease compared with regular drinkers over the 10-year follow-up.