THE DRINKING DAY AS A UNIT OF EXPOSURE IN THE EPIDEMIOLOGY OF ALCOHOL-RELATED MEDICAL DISORDERS

Tissue or organ system damage resulting from alcohol ingestion typical ly requires several years of heavy drinking to reach clinical signific ance. Based upon earlier empirical findings and theoretizing, we hypot hesized that the lifetime number of exposures (drinking days) may be o f significance in understanding the relationship between chronic alcoh ol consumption and organ system perturbations in alcoholic populations . To test this hypothesis, detailed lifetime alcohol consumption histo ries from a racially mixed cohort of detoxified alcoholics (n = 253) a nd nonalcoholics (n = 61) were examined to determine the lifetime tota l number of drinking days. Linear regressions corrected for lifetime t otal dose and pertinent confounding variables yielded statistically si gnificant correlations of moderate size of the number of lifetime alco hol drinking days with diastolic blood pressure and quadriceps muscle strength. The findings were considered to provide evidence that an alc ohol exposure (drinking day), independent of dose, is a biologically s ignificant event in the genesis of tissue toxicities in the cohorts st udied. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.