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Diet, Alcohol and Coronary Heart Disease in Men¹

New England Regional Primate Research Center, Harvard Medical School, Southborough, MA 01772 and School of Nutrition, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155

It is well known that there is a significant positive correlation between consumption of saturated fat and cholesterol and international mortality from coronary heart disease (CHD). It is less well appreciated that there is a strong negative correlation between alcohol consumption and CHD, as might be expected from the effect of alcohol on high density lipoprotein levels. Neither of the simple correlations, however, account for CHD in many countries.

We examined dietary and alcohol consumption data from 18 countries. The simple correlations with CHD are as follows: saturated fat, r = 0.71; polyunsaturated fat, r = -0.34; total alcohol consumption, r = -0.58. A multiple-regression equation incorporating the dietary and alcohol data, however, yeilds an r of 0.92.

KEY WORDS: • saturated fat • polyunsaturated fat • wine • beer • mortality

¹ This work was supported in part by National Institutes of Health Grant No. RR-00168 frm the Division of Research Resources. Portions of this work were presented at the FASEB meetings, April 1987, Washington, DC: [Hegsted, D. M. & Ausman, L. M. (1987) Diet, alcohol and coronary heart disease. Fed. Proc. 46: 591 (abs.)]

Manuscript received 8 March 1988. Revision accepted 6 June 1988.