PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Olena Iakunchykova
AU  - Henrik Schirmer
AU  - Darryl Leong
AU  - Sofia Malyutina
AU  - Andrew Ryabikov
AU  - Maria Averina
AU  - Alexander Kudryavtsev
AU  - Mikhail Kornev
AU  - Ekaterina Voronina
AU  - Andrey Paramonov
AU  - Tom Wilsgaard
AU  - David Leon
TI  - Heavy alcohol drinking and subclinical echocardiographic abnormalities of structure and function
AID  - 10.1136/openhrt-2020-001457
DP  - 2021 Jun 01
TA  - Open Heart
PG  - e001457
VI  - 8
IP  - 1
4099  - http://openheart.bmj.com/content/8/1/e001457.short
4100  - http://openheart.bmj.com/content/8/1/e001457.full
SO  - Open Heart2021 Jun 01; 8
AB  - Objective The aim of the study is to assess changes in heart structure and function associated with heavy alcohol use by comparing echocardiographic indices in a population-based sample to those in patients admitted to an inpatient facility with severe alcohol problems.Methods and results We used data from the Know Your Heart study (2015–2017) which is a cross-sectional study that recruited 2479 participants aged 35–69 years from the general population of the city of Arkhangelsk in Northwest Russia and 278 patients from the Arkhangelsk Regional Psychiatric Hospital with a primary diagnosis related to chronic alcohol use (narcology clinic subsample). The drinking patterns of the population-based sample were characterised in detail. We used regression models controlling for age, sex, smoking, education and waist to hip ratio to evaluate the differences in echocardiographic indices in participants with different drinking patterns. The means of left ventricular end-diastolic diameter and indexed left atrial systolic diameter were increased among heavy drinkers (narcology clinic subsample), while mean left ventricular ejection fraction was decreased in this group compared with the population-based sample. In contrast, the harmful and hazardous drinkers in the population-based sample did not differ from non-problem drinkers with respect to echocardiographic indices of systolic and diastolic function.Conclusions Extremely heavy drinking is associated with a specific set of structural and functional abnormalities of the heart that may be regarded as precursors of alcohol-related dilated cardiomyopathy.Data are available on reasonable request. Requests to access the dataset of KYH study from bona fide researchers may be sent to the International Project on Cardiovascular Disease in Russia (https://metadata.Knowyourheart.Science/)