If You Have More Than 1 Alcoholic Drink In A Day, We've Got Some Bad News

It’s well established that alcohol is not good for you — it can harm your liver and increase your risk of developing certain cancers. However, its impact on heart health is more debated. Some experts have long said that a glass of red wine can be good for your heart, but this isn’t necessarily true, according to the American Heart Association. What’s more, excessive drinking can lead to high blood pressure and an irregular heartbeat.

Now, there’s another heart health reason to be wary of alcohol, particularly for women.

In new research involving 432,265 people — roughly 243,000 men and 189,000 women between 18 and 65 — experts discovered that women who had on average more than one alcoholic drink daily were at higher risk of developing coronary heart disease. The research was conducted by Kaiser Permanente Northern California.

Coronary heart disease, also referred to as coronary artery disease, is a condition in which the “major blood vessels that supply the heart (coronary arteries) struggle to send enough blood, oxygen and nutrients to the heart muscle,” according to the Mayo Clinic.

Symptoms include shortness of breath and chest pain. But for many people, a heart attack is the first noticeable sign of coronary heart disease.

Women who drink 8 or more alcoholic beverages each week are at higher risk of heart disease.

For the Kaiser Permanente study, participants reported their alcohol use between 2014 and 2015. In the four years that followed, researchers analyzed their coronary heart disease incidence and found that 3,108 participants were diagnosed with the condition.

Those who had one to two drinks each week were categorized as having low alcohol consumption; three to seven drinks for women and three to 14 for men