Trajectories of alcohol consumption up to 30 years before and after the diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases: a longitudinal case-control study of 12 502 participants.

Background: To examine the longitudinal trajectories of alcohol consumption prior to and following the diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases (CVD).

Methods: We conducted a case-control study of 2501 incident cases of angina, myocardial infarction or stroke and 10 001 matched controls without the condition. Repeated measures of alcohol were centred on the date of diagnosis, spanning up to 30 years before and after CVD onset. Mean trajectories of weekly consumption were estimated using growth curve models.

Results: For trajectories prior to diagnosis, mean volume of alcohol consumed among male cases increased over time, peaking at around 8 years before diagnosis at 95 (95% CI 60 to 130) g/week and declining afterwards. Trajectories following diagnosis showed mean consumption in male cases dropped from 87 (95% CI 54 to 120) g/week to 74 (95% CI 45 to 102) g/week after the date of diagnosis and then slightly rose to 78 (95% CI 40 to 116) g/week at the subsequent 3.5 years, before gradually declining to 31 (95% CI 2 to 61) g/week at 30 years after diagnosis. Mean consumption among female cases remained stable prior to diagnosis (at about 30 g/week), fell marginally to 25 (95% CI 20 to 30) g/week after the date of diagnosis and kept decreasing afterwards. Similar trajectories were obtained in cases and controls.

Conclusions: This is the first attempt to show how patients with CVD change their drinking volume over such a wide time span. Future research needs to establish insight into drinking behaviour in other ways (such as frequency and context) and address the impact of changes in drinking on patients with CVD.