Even single drink doubles stroke risk for an hour

Washington: The risk of stroke appears to double in the hour after consuming just one drink - be it wine, beer or hard liquor.

"The impact of alcohol on your risk of ischemic stroke (caused by a blood clot in a vessel) appears to depend on how much and how often you drink," said Murray A Mittleman, senior author of the Stroke Onset Study (SOS).

Mittleman is a cardiologist at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at the Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Prior to the SOS, researchers didn't know if alcohol consumption had an immediate impact on ischemic stroke, according to a Harvard statement.

Researchers interviewed 390 ischemic stroke patients (209 men, 181 women) about three days after their stroke regarding many aspects of their lives, reports Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Compared with times when alcohol wasn't being used, the relative risk of stroke after alcohol consumption was:

* 2.3 times higher in the first hour;

* 1.6 times higher in the second hour; and

* 30 percent lower than baseline after 24 hours.

The patterns remained the same whether participants had consumed wine, beer or distilled spirits.

"The evidence on heavy drinking is consistent: Both in the long- and short-term it raises stroke risk," Mittleman said.

Just after drinking, blood pressure rises and blood platelets become stickier, which may increase the possibility of a clot forming.

Stroke is the No. 3 killer and a leading cause of long-term major disability in the US, says American Heart Association.