Women are four times more likely to die from cardiovascular problems compared to men if drinking heavily, a Japanese study revealed.

For the study, Hiroyasu Iso, MD, PhD, of Osaka University, and colleagues turned to the Japan Collaborative Cohort Study, in which 34,776 men and 48,906 women living in 45 communities completed a questionnaire asking about their drinking habits.

The participants with ages ranging between 40 and 79 were then followed for a median of 14.2 years.

The study found that light-to-moderate drinking appears to reduce mortality from total cardiovascular disease.

However, heavy alcohol consumption in men increased mortality from total stroke by 48 percent, hemorrhagic stroke by 67 percent, and ischemic stroke by 35 percent, but cut mortality from coronary heart disease by 19 percent. Light-to-moderate drinking cut mortality from total cardiovascular disease by 12 percent.

When it comes to women, heavy drinking increased the risk of death from total stroke by 92 percent, hemorrhagic stroke by 61 percent, ischemic stroke by 143 and coronary heart disease 310 percent. Light-to-moderate drinking reduced mortality from total cardiovascular disease by 25 percent.

During the follow-up period, 1,628 participants died from stroke and 736 died from heart disease.

Conclusively, “an amount of alcohol that may be beneficial for men is not good for women at all,” Dr. Iso said.

On the other hand, Dr. Iso noted that the Japanese culture imposes some restrictions on women drinking as they get older. Therefore, women who drank in the study might have had other factors that affected their heart disease and stroke risk.

The Japan Collaborative Cohort Study, supported by grants-in-aid for scientific research from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan, was published online July 11 in the journal Stroke.