(Reuters) – People who drink heavily – at least four drinks a day – may be at risk of suffering a brain hemorrhage at a relatively early age, according to a French study.
Researchers whose findings were published in the journal Neurology focused on drinking habits among people who had suffered an intracerebral hemorrhage, a type of stroke where ruptured blood vessels leak blood into the brain.
Among the 540 patients they followed, one-quarter were heavy drinkers before the stroke. Their brain hemorrhage typically struck at the age of 60, versus age 74 among patients who were not heavy drinkers.
“Chronic heavy alcohol intake increases the risk of bleeding at a very young age,” said senior researcher Charlotte Cordonnier, at the University of Lille Nord de France.
Heavy drinkers were not only younger when they had their stroke, but they were also relatively healthy and less likely to have any history of heart disease, stroke or “mini-stroke” symptoms compared to patients who were not heavy drinkers.
Besides suffering brain hemorrhages at a younger age, some of the big drinkers in the study also had a worse prognosis.
When the stroke occurred in a deep part of the brain, heavy drinkers younger than 60 were more likely to die within two years – more than half – as opposed to one third of those who did not drink heavily.
Larry Goldstein, a neurologist not involved in the study, said the findings cannot prove that heavy drinking itself caused strokes at an earlier age.
