Meta-analysis 1: Vascular Mortality
From 17 selected studies including 220,411 patients, seven were studies on patients with previous CVD, four on subjects with T2DM, four on hypertensive subjects and two on patients with a combination of cardiovascular risk factors and/or events. The observed overall relationship between vascular mortality and alcohol intake was interpreted as a ‘L-shaped’ curve, showing a protective effect (average 38%) that was maximal at about 40 and remained still significant up to 60 grams/day. The pooled curve from studies on CVD patients predicted 22% (95% CI: 13%–30%) as maximal protection against vascular mortality at 8 grams/day of alcohol consumption. significant protection was apparent up to 26 grams/day. Considering five studies on CVD patients where alcohol intake questionnaires were administered quite late (.2 months) after the qualifying event, a J-curve was confirmed, with a shape very similar to that obtained using all studies on CVD patients. In the analysis of studies on HTN patients an L-shaped curve was identified, while for T2DM studies, no J-shaped curve could be identifie as the best fitting model, most likely due to the paucity of data.