Lack of association between dietary alcohol and HDL-cholesterol concentrations in obese women

The relationships of alcohol intake and corpulence to HDL-cholesterol were studied in 653 women taking medical advice about body weight. The body mass index (BMI) was positively correlated with triglyceride and negatively with HDL-cholesterol. The relation between BMI and HDL-cholesterol was discontinuous. Total cholesterol, triglycerides and diastolic blood pressure were increased for alcohol intakes greater than 10 g/d regardless of body weight. Alcohol intake was associated with higher concentrations of HDL-cholesterol ( P = 0.006) in non obese (BMI = 25.2 ± 1.5 kg/m 2) subjects, but not in mildly (27.3 ⩽ BMI < 32.3) or massively (BMI ⩾ 32.3) obese subjects. The fact that HDL concentrations were not associated with alcohol intake in obese patients suggests that (1) alcohol acts on the HDL pool through one of the pathways which are perturbed in obesity, possibly lipolysis, (2) obesity is one of the reasons for the differences in individual responses of HDL-cholesterol to alcohol, (3) myocardial infarction might not be inversely correlated with alcohol intake in the obese as it is in the non-obese population.