The MunichBREW I study was launched by the team at the LMU Medical Centre's Department of Medicine and Polyclinic I at the Munich Oktoberfest back in 2015. Back then, the doctors led by Prof Dr Stefan Brunner and private lecturer Dr Moritz Sinner linked excessive alcohol consumption to cardiac arrhythmia - but only examined a snapshot in the electrocardiogram (ECG).
Now the scientists wanted to find out more and once again set out with their mobile equipment. The target: various small parties of young people where there was a high probability ‘that many of the partygoers would reach at least 1.2 per mille,’ says Stefan Brunner. It was precisely these people who formed the group of participants in the MunichBREW II study, the world's largest study to date on acute alcohol consumption and ECG changes in the long-term ECG over several days.
The procedure
In total, the researchers analysed the data of over 200 partygoers who had clearly overindulged with peak blood alcohol levels of up to 2.5 per mille. The ECG monitored their heart rhythm for a total of 48 hours, whereby a distinction was made between the initial value (hour 0), the ‘drinking phase’ (hours 1-5), the ‘recovery phase’ (hours 6-19) and two control phases 24 hours after the ‘drinking phase’ and the ‘recovery phase’ respectively. The acute alcohol levels during the drinking period were determined several times. The ECGs were analysed for heart rate, heart rate variability, atrial fibrillation and other types of cardiac arrhythmia. Despite the exuberant mood of the study participants, the ECGs were almost always of high quality.
The results
‘Clinically relevant arrhythmias occurred in over five per cent of the otherwise healthy participants,’ explains Moritz Sinner, ’and predominantly in the recovery phase.’ Alcohol intake during the drinking phase led to an increasingly rapid pulse rate of over 100 beats per minute. Alcohol, it seems, can profoundly interfere with the autonomic regulatory processes of the heart. ‘From a cardiological point of view, our study provides another negative effect of acute excessive alcohol consumption on health,’ emphasises Brunner. The long-term harmful effects of alcohol-induced arrhythmias on heart health remain the subject of further research.
Original publication: Acute Alcohol Consumption and Arrhythmias in Young Adults: The Munich BREW II Study. Stefan Brunner et al., European Heart Journal, 2024
Source: press release LMU (in German only)
