Alcohol Consumption and the Prevalence of the Metabolic Syndrome in the U.S

Alcohol Consumption and the Prevalence of the Metabolic Syndrome in the U.S. A cross-sectional analysis of data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Matthew S. Freiberg , MD 1 , Howard J. Cabral , PHD, MPH 2 , Tim C. Heeren , PHD 2 , Ramachandran S. Vasan , MD 3 4 and R. Curtis Ellison , MD 3 1 Section of General Internal Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts 2 Department of Biostatistics, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts 3 Section of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts 4 National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts Address correspondence and reprint requests to Matthew S. Freiberg, MD, Boston Medical Center, 91 E. Concord St., MAT 2 Suite 200, Boston, MA 02118. E-mail: matthew.freiberg{at}bmc.org Abstract OBJECTIVE —The aim of this study was to examine the relations of alcohol consumption to the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome and its components in the U.S. population. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS —We performed a cross-sectional analysis on data from 8,125 participants from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey who were evaluated for each component of the metabolic syndrome, using the National Cholesterol Education Program criteria, fasting insulin, and alcohol consumption. Current alcohol consumption was defined as ≥1 alcoholic drink per month. RESULTS —After adjustment for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, income, tobacco use, physical activity, and diet, subjects who consumed 1–19 and ≥20 drinks of alcohol per month had odds ratios (ORs) for the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome of 0.65 and 0.34, respectively ( P < 0.05 for all), compared with current nondrinkers. These findings were particularly noteworthy for beer and wine drinkers. The association of ≥20 alcoholic drinks per month with the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome was consistent across ethnicities but was most striking in white men and women (ORs 0.35 and 0.22, respectively; P < 0.05). Alcohol consumption was significantly and inversely associated with the prevalence of the following three components of the metabolic syndrome: low serum HDL cholesterol, elevated serum triglycerides, high waist circumference, as well as hyperinsulinemia ( P < 0.05 for all). CONCLUSIONS —Mild to moderate alcohol consumption is associated with a lower prevalence of the metabolic sy