U. Ganga Prasad, Katragadda Harish
BACKGROUND There are about 2 billion people worldwide who consume alcoholic beverages. Alcohol causes 1.8 million deaths worldwide. Alcohol consumption has both health and social consequences via intoxication, alcohol dependence and other biochemical effects of alcohol. There is increasing evidence that both volume of alcohol and pattern of drinking is relevant for health outcomes. Alcohol is known to cause various types of malignancies (including oesophageal, liver), cirrhosis of liver, homicide, epileptic seizures and motor vehicle accidents. There is increasing research in the past decades about the role of alcohol both as a risk and as a protective factor for cardiovascular disease. Beneficial effects of alcohol in coronary heart disease is seen at low to moderate levels of average volume of alcohol consumption. The concept nowadays is that average volume of drinking and coronary artery disease shows a J shaped relationship with detrimental effects compared with abstainers at higher levels of alcohol intake. Lower levels of alcohol consumption appear to protect against coronary artery disease by favorable lipid profile i.e. an increase in HDL level and decrease in LDL level. The present study aims to study the relationship between levels of alcohol consumption and fasting lipid levels. The aim of the study is to compare and correlate values of fasting lipid levels in moderate and heavy alcohol consumers with non-alcohol consumers. MATERIALS AND METHODS This study is a case-control study. The study is done over a 2-year period. Total 150 subjects were taken, both cases (100) and controls (50). Subjects are divided into 3 groups, moderate and heavy alcohol consumers and non-alcohol consumers. Detailed history was taken, and clinical examination done as per proforma. They underwent fasting lipid profile. These lipid values were compared with each other in all the 3 groups using standard statistical methods.
