Wine, alcohol and cardiovascular risk: open issue

Prevention of cardiovascular risk by moderate alcohol consumption: epidemiologic evidence and plausible mechanisms

“…Thus, a possible sex difference in the protective effect of alcohol might exist and explain apparently controversial results in different epidemiologic studies. Large studies are needed to test whether women are more susceptible indeed to the benefit of alcohol or if they more likely drink lower amounts of alcohol, thus receiving its maximal advantage [46,47].…”

Alcohol, cardiovascular risk and health: there is a window for benefits. A rebuttal

“…A rebuttal We challenge the validity of evidence supporting the generally accepted belief, as expounded by de Gaetano et al [1], that light-to-moderate alcohol consumption provides more health benefits than harms. Our argument is that uncontrolled confounding exaggerates the apparent benefits of light-tomoderate drinking and probably also leads to an underestimation of the harms.…”

“…The Forum [1][2][3][4][5] mentioned several times the known J-shaped relationship between total mortality and the amount of alcohol consumed, showing that low-to-moderate consumption of alcohol significantly reduces total mortality, while higher doses increase it. The protection usually decreases in adjusted studies, confirming the importance of confounding in assessing alcohol effects, but remains in a range of undoubted public health value.…”

“…It seems unlikely that the randomized controlled trial required to answer this question will be carried out, but that does not mean the probably confounded, non-randomized evidence available should be accepted without question. A rapid genotyping method for the vitamin K epoxide reductase complex subunit 1 (VKORC1) gene Lately, we demonstrated that genotype for certain polymorphisms in the CYP2C9 and VKORC1 genes together with patient factors of age and height accounts for 55% of the variability in warfarin dose requirements [1]. Screening patients for these factors may allow individualization of warfarin therapy toward improving the safety of anticoagulation therapy.…”

“…Screening patients for these factors may allow individualization of warfarin therapy toward improving the safety of anticoagulation therapy. The prospective utilization of a tailored dosing regimen in the clinic would be feasible if rapid genotyping methods were available [1]. We report the development and validation of a rapid genotyping method for the VKORC1 C1173T polymorphism, which has been shown to be an appropriate tag single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) for haplotypes associated with a lower oral anticoagulant dose requirement [2,3].…”