e., an underlying disorder or environmental exposure that may contribute to both heavy alcohol use and depressive disorders), and potential self-medication with alcohol by individuals with unipolar depressive disorders (Grant and Pickering 1997; Rehm et al. 2004). Research findings suggest that all of these pathways may play a role. ref 3 The pathways for the association between alcohol and unipolar depressive disorder in which alcohol does not play a causal role only affect the measurement of the alcohol-based RR for unipolar depressive disorder; however, they do not contradict the notion that alcohol is causally related to the development of unipolar depressive disorder via other pathways. This conclusion results from the observation that depressive symptoms increase markedly during heavy-drinking occasions and disappear or lessen during periods of abstinence (Rehm et al.

2003a). Numerous studies also have examined the association between alcohol and Alzheimer��s disease and vascular dementia.6 These analyses generally have determined a beneficial effect of alcohol, which has been attributed to alcohol��s ability to prevent ischemic events in the circulatory system (Peters et al. 2008; Tyas 2001). However, studies of these associations have generated highly heterogeneous results, and the design and statistical analyses of these studies make it impossible to rule out the potential effects of confounding factors (Panza et al. 2008; Peters et al. 2008). Cardiovascular and Circulatory Diseases Alcohol consumption affects multiple aspects of the cardiovascular system, with both harmful and protective effects.

These include the following (figure 4): Increased risk of hypertension (at all consumption levels for men and at higher consumption levels for women); Increased risk of disorders that are caused by abnormalities in the generation and disruption of the electrical signals that coordinate the heart beat (i.e., conduction disorders and other dysrhythmias); Increased risk of cardiovascular disease, such as stroked caused by blockage of blood vessels in the brain (i.e., ischemic stroke) (at a higher volume of consumption) or rupture of blood vessels (i.e., hemorrhagic stroke); and Protective effects (at lower levels of consumption) against hypertension in women and against ischemic heart disease and ischemic stroke in both men and women.

Figure 4 The relationship between increasing amounts of average daily alcohol consumption and the relative risk for cardiovascular diseases (i.e., hypertension, conduction disorders, and ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke), with lifetime abstainers serving as the … The specific biological pathways through which Drug_discovery alcohol consumption interacts with the cardiovascular system are not always clear, but several mechanisms have been identified that may play a role.