Alcohol drinking and the risk of chronic kidney damage

The findings from previous research on the relationship between alcohol drinking and chronic kidney damage (mainly including declined glomerular filtration rate (GFR), proteinuria, and end-stage renal disease) have been conflicting.
A meta-analysis was conducted to investigate the potential associations. PubMed and Web of Science were searched to identify prospective studies assessing the associations between alcohol drinking and chronic kidney damage published up to March 2019. A total of 15 cohort studies were included in the study with 268,723 participants and 31,766 incident cases.
Participants with low (<13 g/d), moderate (13 to 26 g/d), and high (26 to 60 g/d) dose of alcohol drinking had 12% (RR: 0.88, 95% CI: 0.83 to 0.93),
24% (RR: 0.76, 95% CI: 0.70 to 0.83), and 21% (RR:
0.79, 95% CI: 0.71 to 0.88) lower risk of chronic kidney damage compared with the reference
group (non- or occasional drinkers), respectively. The lower risk for chronic kidney damage remained significant for the declined glomerular filtration rate, in men, or for participants aged less than 55 yrs, or studies with longer than 8 yrs of follow-up, while severe alcohol drinking (≥60 g/d) insignificantly increased the risk of chronic kidney damage (RR: 1.07, 95% CI: 0.53 to 2.15).
The results suggest that participants drinking less than 60 g alcohol per day were at lower risk of declined glomerular filtration rate, especially for men or participants aged less than 55 yrs. The researchers say that more prospective cohort studies are required to confirm their present findings.
Source: Alcohol drinking and the risk of chronic kidney damage: A meta-analysis of 15 prospective cohort studies. Li D, Xu J, Liu F, Wang X, Yang H, Li X. Alcohol
Clin Exp Res. 2019 May 14.