Beer ethanol consumption and plasma homocysteine among patients with type 2 diabetes

We analyzed the association between beer and other type of ethanol consumption and tHcy levels among type 2 diabetic patients. Male type 2 diabetic patients without overt nephropathy were studied (n = 242). Ethanol consumptions of the patients were 35.1 ± 37.8 mL/day for total ethanol, 13.9 ± 15.2 mL/day for beer ethanol and 21.2 ± 32.1 mL/day for non-beer ethanol. Both, total and non-beer ethanol consumption correlated with tHcy, whereas beer ethanol consumption showed a trend to inverse association with tHcy (standard regression coefficient, 0.184, 0.283 and −0.110, respectively). Each intake of 30 mL/day ethanol consumption was associated with an increase of tHcy of 0.6 μmol/L for total ethanol and 1.1 μmol/L for non-beer ethanol and a decrease of tHcy of 0.7 μmol/L for beer ethanol. Similar trend was observed in the analysis model which included only drinkers, and also in an adjusted analysis model. Plasma tHcy of beer only drinkers was lower than that of non-beer alcohol only drinkers (8.9 ± 1.9 μmol/L versus 11.5 ± 5.5 μmol/L, P = 0.003). Non-beer ethanol consumption might be less healthy compared with beer ethanol consumption among type 2 diabetic patients in terms of the effects on tHcy.