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Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

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Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#61

Post by chubot »

blunte wrote: post #7
cutthegrass2 wrote: post #2

The article briefly mentions RHR (resting heart rate) also. Anecdotally of course, but I notice my RHR being ~5 - 8 bpm lower when I abstain from alcohol for a few days.

I have worn a Garmin watch with HR monitor for months at a time off and on for the last few years. My resting heart rate while sleeping is typically 64-68 without alcohol and 65-85 after drinking several glasses of wine. There is such a marked difference in RHR in the two scenarios that you could tell if I drank simply by looking at my heart rate chart during the night. Interestingly, I attempted to start running for…

Yup, I also noticed this. I wore a pulse oximeter every night which measures your heart rate, and it jumped from around 60 to 80 just because of alcohol one night. Crazy!

That was the biggest effect I saw by far, more than all the sleep apnea variables I was trying to measure!

Granted I don't drink often, and metabolize alcohol poorly, but still that's a huge difference.

FWIW I'm not out of shape; I commuted 1h / day by bike for over a decade, and was a medically normal weight, which is maybe 20-30th percentile in the population.

Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#62

Post by clairity »

sjg007 wrote: post #9
blunte wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have worn a Garmin watch with HR monitor for months at a time off and on for the last few years. My resting heart rate while sleeping is typically 64-68 without alcohol and 65-85 after drinking several glasses of wine. There is such a marked difference in RHR in the two scenarios that you could tell if I drank simply by looking at my heart rate chart during the night. Interestingly, I attempted to start running for…

Elite athletes have RHR in the 40s. Exercise improves the heart.

be careful of the inverse inference though. a rhr in the 40s doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in good health. a low rhr could indicate a myriad of other cardiovascular issues (something of a personal concern for me).

but contrary to the article, an evening whiskey ~3 times a week (in my experience) seems to be optimal for delivering antiseptic benefits with few/no downsides.

Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#63

Post by Ntrails »

FredPret wrote: post #49
Mordisquitos wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure that there are many alternatives that would be healthier than alcohol for any given individual, be it exercise, social and economic stability, CBT, vacation, improved diet, better sleep, etc. However, in societies where alcohol consumption is an engrained feature of ordinary life and social interactions, is it even feasible to encourage every person to implement whichever of the myriad of alternatives would…

I worried about this a lot before I quit drinking. Now I can tell you that my social life is exactly the same as before - but I’m drinking water or near-beer or something fizzy instead. I don’t care, my friends don’t care, and if they did, they wouldn’t count as friends anyway. Now if you’re a frat member, maybe it’s different.

My other half never thought she would be able to date me, because she wanted someone to share a bottle of wine with. Turns out, she can have a lovely time drinking wine and having a designated driver to get her home :)

But I will say that being tee total has impacted my experience of social gatherings based around drinking. Sure, with good friends it couldn't matter less. But with work folks, acquaintances etc? Yeah, it matters

Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#64

Post by jamestnz »

1_player wrote: post #42

OT: "Heart Rate Variability (HRV) gives us an idea about the state of our autonomic nervous system" This answered a big medical doubt I have had for the past week. For ages my heart rate has been at a stable 95-105 resting BPM with very little variability, which is quite high and understandable given my low fitness. I've recently radically changed my diet, and in 2 weeks my resting BPM has gone down to around 65 (!),…

HRV describes the steadiness (or not) of the timing between beats, as measured in milliseconds. It sounds like you are describing something else here, like your resting rate and how much/quickly it responds to exercise.

For an example of HRV, let's say you're showing a heart rate of exactly 95 BPM for a one minute period, which means an average of one beat every 0.6316 second. If the actual beats were very close to occurring exactly once every 0.6316 sec like clockwork, then you have a low HRV.

At some later time, you also measure 95 BPM during a one minute period, but this time you find the period between beats is much more variable. Sometimes it is 0.627 seconds, and sometimes it is 0.641 seconds. The beats aren't falling like clockwork, they are all over the place.

The second example is a high HRV, both examples having the same heart rate.

Accurate beat-measuring equipment is required to calculate HRV (e.g. a heart-rate watch and an app).

Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#65

Post by nradov »

serverholic wrote: post #14
blakesterz wrote: post #3

They close with this: However, a more critical review[0] of the epidemiological data that took into account genetic variants which impact the effect of alcohol intake on longevity shows that the described J-shaped relationship is not as robust as once thought. In conclusion the review simply states: The optimal level of alcohol intake for health and longevity is zero [0] https://academic.oup.com/ageing/article/49/3/3…

Epidemiology strikes again! I watch a lot of videos on nutrition and researchers often say that randomized control trials are too expensive so we need to rely on epidemiology despite its flaws. What I find crazy is that nations around the world collaborate and spend billions of dollars building a particle accelerator and yet we can't seem to find money to research something that affects every human every day of their…

It's not just a money issue. It would be impractical and unethical to confine study subjects in controlled environments for long periods of time. That's what we would have to do in order to gather reliable data and eliminate confounding factors.

Most human nutrition studies are only observational and barely a step above junk science. Don't take them too seriously.

Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#66

Post by grok22 »

serverholic wrote: post #14
blakesterz wrote: post #3

They close with this: However, a more critical review[0] of the epidemiological data that took into account genetic variants which impact the effect of alcohol intake on longevity shows that the described J-shaped relationship is not as robust as once thought. In conclusion the review simply states: The optimal level of alcohol intake for health and longevity is zero [0] https://academic.oup.com/ageing/article/49/3/3…

Epidemiology strikes again! I watch a lot of videos on nutrition and researchers often say that randomized control trials are too expensive so we need to rely on epidemiology despite its flaws. What I find crazy is that nations around the world collaborate and spend billions of dollars building a particle accelerator and yet we can't seem to find money to research something that affects every human every day of their…

Because it involves humans? I am only half-joking, but I think it's much harder to track and study large numbers of humans than it is to do esoteric particle physics experiments.

Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#67

Post by nradov »

blunte wrote: post #7
cutthegrass2 wrote: post #2

The article briefly mentions RHR (resting heart rate) also. Anecdotally of course, but I notice my RHR being ~5 - 8 bpm lower when I abstain from alcohol for a few days.

I have worn a Garmin watch with HR monitor for months at a time off and on for the last few years. My resting heart rate while sleeping is typically 64-68 without alcohol and 65-85 after drinking several glasses of wine. There is such a marked difference in RHR in the two scenarios that you could tell if I drank simply by looking at my heart rate chart during the night. Interestingly, I attempted to start running for…

I also wear a Garmin watch with HR monitor. Having a couple glasses of wine with dinner doesn't seem to noticeably change my RHR while sleeping. There are probably differences between individuals.

An RHR that gets into the 85 range could indicate a cardiac problem. Might want to get that checked.

Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#68

Post by FredPret »

Ntrails wrote: post #63
FredPret wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worried about this a lot before I quit drinking. Now I can tell you that my social life is exactly the same as before - but I’m drinking water or near-beer or something fizzy instead. I don’t care, my friends don’t care, and if they did, they wouldn’t count as friends anyway. Now if you’re a frat member, maybe it’s different.

My other half never thought she would be able to date me, because she wanted someone to share a bottle of wine with. Turns out, she can have a lovely time drinking wine and having a designated driver to get her home :) But I will say that being tee total has impacted my experience of social gatherings based around drinking. Sure, with good friends it couldn't matter less. But with work folks, acquaintances etc? Yeah,…

Another thing to keep in mind is that non-alcoholic drinks as a sector are growing rapidly. We might see a sea change here within a generation, like we saw with smoking, where it simply isn’t cool anymore.

For anyone interested, I followed Allen Carr's Easy Way to Control Alcohol. It was a totally painless process for me

Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#69

Post by WindyCityBrew »

intergalplan wrote: post #48
JohnWhigham wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weed inhibits REM sleep. You may feel rested, but you're actually harming yourself long term.

Damnit. Well, it's that or lots of 5-6 hour nights, or worse. Or bad hangovers and other weird shit from sleeping pills. Maybe time to get a sleep-tracker watch.

Do you drink a lot of coffee or other caffeinated drinks, especially later in the day? I used to think caffeine didn't have much affect on my sleep, until I cut it out. Old habits die hard, but I just drink decaf coffee now and am getting better sleep then I can remember.

Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#70

Post by thinkharderdev »

Scoundreller wrote: post #30
hypersoar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The link doesn't refute the J-shaped curve, but rather that small to moderate amount of alcohol has health benefits . "Therefore, although there is a strong body of evidence that shows a J-shaped association between alcohol intake and mortality, it seems likely that the link between low–moderate intake and improved survival is not causal, and there is no ‘safe’ threshold intake below which drinking gives benefit. How…

Or total/near-total abstainers may be so because of health issues. If small amounts of alcohol make you ill, you may not be great at handling other bodily assaults. Or abstainers lose out on job opportunities/social networking, end up in a lower socioeconomic class and lose lifespan because of the negative effects of that. Who knows.

The takeaway for me from the back-and-forth on alcohol consumption is that the effect size of moderate alcohol consumption on all cause mortality is close to zero. So whether or not you decide to drink alcohol in moderation should hinge on other factors. Do you enjoy having a glass or two of wine in the evening and suffer no noticeable ill effects the next day? Great, then have at it. Do you not enjoy drinking alcohol in any quantity or feel noticeably worse the next day even after one or two drinks? Great, then abstain entirely and don't worry about missing out on any alleged health benefits. Do you enjoy drinking alcohol but have a history of alcohol dependence in your family or find it difficult to stop at just one or two drinks? Maybe best to abstain.
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