Association between Alcohol Intake and Abdominal Obesity among the Korean Population

OBJECTIVES: Although abdominal obesity has been reported to be highly related with alcohol intake, the results are still inconclusive. Therefore, this study was conducted to explore the association between alco-hol and abdominal obesity among the Korean population. METHODS: This study included 8,603 participants (men: 5,195, women: 3,408) aged 30 to 87 who visit-ed the health promotion centers in Seoul for routine health examinations from April, 2006 to June, 2007. Abdominal obesity was defined as WC ≥90 cm for men and ≥85 cm for women in accordance with the Korean Society for the Study of Obesity. For ever drinkers, total alcohol consumption in grams was classi-fied into four groups (group 1, non-drinkers; group 2, 1-10 g of alcohol per day; group 3, 11-20 g of alco-hol per day; and group 4, over 20 g of alcohol per day). RESULTS: The mean age of the study population was 45.4 yr old (men) and 45.3 yr (women). The average waist circumference was 85.3 cm in men and 75.3 cm in women. A high alcohol intake was associated with high waist circumference in both genders. In multivariate analysis, the group of men and women drinkers consuming >20 g in a day had a large waist circumference compared with men and women non-drinkers. CONCLUSION: This study showed that a high alcohol intake was related to high waist circumference. Such association remained independently even after adjustment for smoking, which is strongly related to abdomi-nal obesity.