Alcohol and Heart Health

Dear Colleagues,

Alcohol has been made and consumed for over 7000 years. Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth U.S. president, stated “It has long been recognized that the problems with alcohol relate not to the use of a bad thing, but to the abuse of a good thing.” Past studies have suggested that light to moderate alcohol consumption reduces the incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD), ischemic stroke, as well as CHD mortality and all-cause mortality, especially in western populations. Epidemiological evidence shows a J- or U-shaped association between alcohol consumption and both CHD and all-cause mortality, with higher cardiovascular event rates occurring among abstainers and heavy drinkers compared to moderate consumers. However, this hypothesis has been challenged by more recent studies. Furthermore, ethnicity, gender, type of alcoholic beverage, and pattern of alcohol intake, may also influence the relationship between alcohol and heart health.

Conversely, heavy alcohol consumption causes cardiomyopathy, cardiac arrhythmias, hemorrhagic strokes, hepatic cirrhosis, and pancreatitis. Excessive drinking is the third most preventable cause of death in the U.S. In this special issue, we review the effects of alcohol on CHD, individual cardiovascular risk factors, cardiomyopathy, and cardiac arrhythmias, including the most recent evidence on the effects of alcohol on heart health. 

Dr.  Vincent Figueredo 

Guest Editor

Manuscripts should be submitted via our online editorial system at https://imr.propub.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to start your submission. Manuscripts can be submitted now or up until the deadline. All papers will go through peer-review process. Accepted papers will be published in the journal (as soon as accepted) and meanwhile listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, reviews as well as short communications are preferred. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office to announce on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts will be thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. Please visit the Instruction for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) in this open access journal is 2200 USD. Submitted manuscripts should be well formatted in good English.