Are One or Two Drinks Good for Your Health?…“Even One Drink a Day Threatens Heart Health”

A Korean study has been published that directly challenges the common belief that “one or two drinks are good for your health.” The findings confirmed that even drinking about one shot of soju per day increases the risk of atrial fibrillation, which threatens heart health—suggesting there is no truly “safe” amount of alcohol.

A research team led by Prof. Dae-in Lee and Prof. Dong-oh Kang of the Cardiovascular Center at Korea University Guro Hospital, along with Prof. Sun-won Kim of Korea University Ansan Hospital, reached this conclusion after comprehensively reviewing large-scale cohort studies, randomized clinical trials, Mendelian randomization analyses, and basic pathophysiology research. The study was published in the international cardiovascular journal 〈Trends in Cardiovascular Medicine〉.

According to the team, when alcohol enters the body, it triggers oxidative stress and inflammatory responses, which disrupt the balance of the autonomic nervous system and hormone regulation. When this process repeats, inflammation develops in blood vessels and clots form, accelerating atherosclerosis.

As a result, cumulative strain builds on the heart and brain, leading to various cardiovascular diseases. The researchers proposed a new conceptual schematic that organizes this complex process into three stages: “primary triggers → secondary mediators → final organ responses.”

Even “one drink” increases atrial fibrillation risk

The most notable finding in this study involves atrial fibrillation. The analysis showed that even light drinking—about one shot of soju—noticeably increased the risk of developing atrial fibrillation. People who drank 6–7 shots of soju per week had about an 8% higher risk of atrial fibrillation than those who did not drink at all. Risk increased in proportion to the amount consumed, and heavy episodic drinking—especially consuming one or more bottles of soju in a single sitting—was found to sharply raise the risk.

Prof. Dae-in Lee, the paper’s first author, emphasized, “Atrial fibrillation is a representative arrhythmia directly associated with stroke, heart failure, and sudden death, and it is even more dangerous because it often progresses without symptoms.”

Asians are more vulnerable to alcohol

The team also analyzed the impact of genetic background. The results showed that in people with ALDH2 and ADH1B gene variants—commonly associated among Asians with being “poor at handling alcohol”—acetaldehyde levels remain higher in the body even at the same level of alcohol intake, making vascular inflammation and abnormalities in cardiac electrical conduction more likely.

In addition, when daily alcohol intake exceeded 12 g (about 1.5 shots of soju), a pattern of steadily increasing risk of developing hypertension was observed, and this association was more pronounced in men than in women.

Prof. Sun-won Kim, a co-first author, explained, “This study provides important evidence that goes beyond the conventional approach of judging alcohol’s impact on cardiovascular health solely by the amount consumed, showing that risk can vary greatly depending on an individual’s genetic characteristics, underlying conditions, and drinking patterns.”