The Association of Cigarette Smoking and Alcohol Consumption with Other Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Men from Seoul, Korea

Abstract

PURPOSE: To explore the effects of cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption on cardiovascular disease risk factors such as hypertension, dyslipidemia, and glucose intolerance in Korean men.METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, we gathered the smoking and drinking history by self-administered questionnaire between June 1994 and May 1995 among 1053 men, age 20–77, who visited a prevention center for a multiphasic health check at St. Mary's Hospital, Seoul.RESULTS: Cigarette smoking had a significant inverse association with systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Adjusted for age, body mass index (BMI), and alcohol consumption, the odds ratio of hypercholesterolemia (⩾ 240 mg/dl) was 1.30 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.09–1.55), lower high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (< 40 mg/dl) was 1.29 (95% CI 1.08–1.54), higher low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (⩾ 160 mg/dl) was 1.30 (95% CI 1.07–1.56), and hypertriglyceridemia (⩾ 200 mg/dl) was 1.40 (95% CI 1.16–1.68) among men who smoked 21–30 cigarettes per day compared with nonsmokers. Adjusted for age, BMI, and cigarette smoking in men who consumed 90–179 and 180–269 g/week of alcohol compared with nondrinkers, the odds ratio of hypertension was 1.73 (95% CI 1.01–3.00) and 1.48 (95% CI 1.01–2.17), respectively. Alcohol consumption had a significant protective effect (adjusted odds ratio: 0.60–0.78) against lower HDL cholesterol in all categories ⩾ 90 g of alcohol per week compared with nondrinkers. The adjusted odds ratio of hypertriglyceridemia was 1.17 (95% CI 1.04–1.31), and glucose intolerance (fasting blood sugar (FBS) ⩾ 120 mg/dl) was 1.27 (95% CI 1.11–1.14) among those who consumed ⩾ 360 g/week of alcohol compared with nondrinkers.CONCLUSIONS: In this Korean population study, although alcohol consumption increased HDL cholesterol, which might have a protective effect on coronary heart disease, cigarette smoking was associated with decreased blood pressure, smoking was confirmed to have dyslipidemic effect such as increasing total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, triglyceride and decreasing HDL cholesterol, and alcohol consumption was confirmed to be associated with hypertension, hypertriglyceridemia, and glucose intolerance as in Caucasian. Further prospective intervention studies are needed for evaluating cardiovascular effects after cessation of smoking and drinking.