This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Low-to-moderate alcohol consumption associated with lower fibromyalgia symptoms
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Patients with fibromyalgia who reported low-to-moderate alcohol consumption had less severe symptoms and better quality of life compared with patients who did not drink alcohol, according to recent study results.
Ann Vincent, MD, director of the fibromyalgia clinic at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and colleagues analyzed data from self-reported alcohol consumption by 946 patients with fibromyalgia (mean age, 49 years; 94.3% women). Patients were grouped by the number of alcoholic drinks consumed weekly: none, low (three or fewer), moderate (three to seven) or heavy (more than 7).
Ann Vincent
Fifty-eight percent of patients were nondrinkers, while low alcohol consumption was reported by 36% of patients, moderate by 3% and heavy consumption by 3%. The cohorts differed significantly in employment status (P<.001), education level (P=.009), body mass index (BMI; P=.002) and opioid use (P=.002). Compared with nondrinkers, patients who consumed alcohol had higher education levels and lower BMI, frequencies of unemployment and opioid use.
Upon adjusting for these differences, researchers determined the cohorts varied in number of tender points (P=.01), Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire score (P=.01), physical function (P<.001), absence from work (P=.005), job ability (P=.03) and pain (P=.001). Short Form-36 Health Survey subscales of physical functioning (SF-36; P<.001), pain index (P=.002), general health perception (P=.02), social functioning (P=.02) and physical component summary (P<.001) also differed across groups.
Overall fibromyalgia-related symptoms were lower for the low and moderate drinkers, who had higher quality of life (QOL) scores than the other groups. Moderate- and low-alcohol drinkers reported better physical QOL than nondrinkers and significant differences for SF-36 physical functioning, pain index and physical component summary scores, according to pairwise comparison among all patient groups. Heavy drinkers displayed only better SF-36 physical functioning scores compared with nondrinkers.
“Studies suggest that fibromyalgia is a central amplification disorder of pain perception due to neurochemical imbalances in the central nervous system,” the researchers said. “We believe that a more likely mechanism … might be centrally mediated via gamma-Aminobutyric acid [GABA] system.
“Future studies may consider assessing the relationship between GABA, alcohol consumption and fibromyalgia symptoms.”
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts