Stroke risk may double in first hour after a drink

Long day at work? Stressed about paying your bills? How tempting, at such times, to reach for a drink.... If that sounds like you, here's some sobering news from a study published online in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Assn.: The risk of stroke appears to double in the hour after consuming alcohol.


Even though the risk of stroke was highest in the hour after drinking, it was lowered when alcohol had been consumed earlier than that. Among those who drank, the chance of a stroke was 30% lower when moderate amounts of alcohol had been consumed more than 24 hours earlier, compared with no alcohol intake at all. ("Moderate" is defined as no more than one drink a day for a woman and two for a man.)

Moderate drinkers may breathe easier, but they would do well to think about where they do their drinking. A recent survey by research firm Mintel found that among alcohol drinkers, a significantly greater number of people drink at home than they do in public venues. And when people do drink at home, they consume almost twice the number of drinks in an average month than they do in restaurants or bars (10 versus 5.7).