Drinking On Flights Bad For Your Heart

DRINKING ALCOHOL DURING A FLIGHT, combined with cabin pressure at cruising altitude, may threaten a sleeping passenger's heart health, especially on longhaul flights, suggests a German study published in the journal Thorax.

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Blood oxygen levels can drop to around 90 per cent at cruising altitude, even in young and healthy adults. Anything lower than that is considered hypobaric hypoxia, or low blood oxygen levels at high altitude. Alcohol is already known to relax blood vessel walls and increase heart rate during sleep, an effect similar to that of hypobaric hypoxia.