Study finds higher cholesterol in people who quit drinking; experts flag ‘methodology issues’

The study does not directly prove that alcohol causes these effects

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NEW DELHI: A study that tracked people for 10 years in Japan has found that those who quit alcohol had higher levels of LDL or 'bad' cholesterol and lower levels of HDL or 'good' cholesterol, compared to those who continued drinking.

Experts, however, sounded caution regarding the study's methodology.

Researchers from Japan, including those from the Institute of Science Tokyo, and the US' Harvard Medical School, looked at over 3.2 lakh yearly health check-ups to a centre for preventive medicine, made by nearly 57,700 individuals from October 2012 to October 2022.

The findings, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open, also showed opposite effects among people when they started drinking, "associated with (a) modest cholesterol improvement".