Alcohol drinking reduces the risk of chronic kidney damage: A meta‐analysis of 15 prospective cohort studies

The relationship between alcohol drinking and chronic kidney damage, mainly including declined glomerular filtration rate (GFR), proteinuria, and end‐stage renal disease, is unclear. A meta‐analysis was conducted to investigate their 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 GFR , or 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 7% risk of chronic kidney damage (RR : 1.07, 95% CI : 0.53 to 2.15).
The authors state that based on the meta‐analysis, participants with alcohol drinking less than 60 g/d were at lower risk of declined GFR, especially in men or participants aged less than 55 yrs. More prospective cohort studies are required to confirm the present findings, they add.
Source: Li, D., Xu, J., Liu, F., Wang, X., Yang, H. and Li, X. (2019), Alcohol Drinking and the Risk of Chronic Kidney Damage: A Meta‐Analysis of 15 Prospective Cohort Studies. Alcohol Clin Exp Re, 43: 1360-1372.