New research confirms the link of heart attack to alcohol abuse. Previous studies have made a connection between the two but the new research clearly shows that excessive drinking can lead to myocardial infarction.

Heart attack is the leading cause of death in the U.S., with heart disease as the second most expensive medical condition as reported earlier, next only to diabetes.

An estimated 15 million Americans engage in excess alcohol consumption as shown by statistics. Which means that this number of people are prone to suffer heart diseases as well.

The new study wanted to find out if cardiovascular problems are caused by alcohol abuse. In the process of the study, they analyzed 15 million patient records in California from 2005 to 2009, who are 21 and above.

Of the subjects, 1.8% are found to be diagnosed with alcohol abuse. However, one of the limitations of the study is the unspecified amount of alcohol in the body that indicates alcohol abuse, the Express reports.

To solve the problem, researchers settle with reports of acute and chronic alcohol use recorded in the patient records.

The findings confirm common medical belief that alcohol abuse causes heart attack.Specifically, it increases the chances by 1.4 fold.

Moreover, findings also confirm that alcohol abuse doubles the risk of atrial fibrillation and increases chances of heart failure by 2.3 fold.

The good news is, researchers also estimate that eliminating alcohol abuse results in 73,000 fewer atrial fibrillation cases, 34,000 fewer heart attacks and 91,000 fewer patients with congestive heart failure in the US alone.

According to the Fox 6 Now, the surge of alcohol abuse is caused by the popular saying that alcohol is good for the heart. Especially in wine advertising, people are bombarded with the idea that alcohol is good.

An expert corrects that statement by explaining that only moderate alcohol consumption has beneficial cardiovascular effects and could even possibly prevent a heart attack.