Although alcohol consumption is a common lifestyle behavior with previous studies reporting positive effects of alcohol on chronic pain and rheumatoid arthritis , no studies to this date have examined alcohol consumption in patients with fibromyalgia. We examined the association between alcohol consumption and symptom severity and quality of life (QOL) in patients with fibromyalgia.
Data on self-reported alcohol consumption from 946 patients were analyzed. Subjects were grouped by level of alcohol consumption (number of drinks/week): none, low ([less than or equal to]3), moderate (>3 to 7), and heavy (>7). Univariate analyses were used to find potential confounders, and analysis of covariance was used to adjust for these confounders. Tukey HSD pairwise comparisons were used to determine differences between alcohol groups.
Our study demonstrates that low and moderate alcohol consumption was associated with lower fibromyalgia symptoms and better QOL compared to no alcohol consumption. The reasons for these results are unclear. Since recent studies have demonstrated that gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA) levels are low in fibromyalgia, and alcohol is known to be a GABA-agonist, future studies should examine whether alcohol could have a salutary effect on pain and other symptoms in fibromyalgia.
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