ArticlePLOS digital health2026
Real-world effects of alcohol on heart rate, sleep, and physical activity by age and sex.
Article in PLOS digital health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Alcohol Use Trajectories During the First 72 Weeks of WHOOP Wearable Platform Membership: Observational Cohort Study.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2026Observational
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Alcohol consumption acutely disrupts physiology and behavior. Yet, the modifying effects of age, biological sex, and health behaviors are not well understood. In this retrospective cohort study, we analyzed 5,109,185 person-days from 20,968 participants and fit generalized additive models to estimate within-person associations between alcohol intake and nocturnal resting heart rate (RHR), heart rate variability (HRV), sleep duration, and next-day physical activity. Models were stratified by age and sex, and adjusted for drinking frequency, body mass index, weekday/weekend, and season, and accounted for between-person differences via person-mean centering. We also assessed whether drinking earlier in the day, longer post-drinking sleep, and reducing physical activity attenuated disruptions. Acute alcohol consumption was associated with dose-dependent increases in nocturnal RHR and reductions in HRV, alongside decreases in sleep duration and next-day physical activity. These changes were more pronounced in females than males and in younger than older adults: consuming one drink more than personal average, compared with one less, was associated with an increase in RHR by 2.8 bpm (99.9% CI: 2.7, 2.9) in females and 2.4 bpm (99.9% CI: 2.3, 2.4) in males, while HRV declined by 3.8 ms (99.9% CI: -4.1, -3.5) in females and 3.3 ms (99.9% CI: -3.5, -3.1) in males. Drinking earlier in the day, obtaining longer post-drinking sleep, and reducing activity each reduced these effects. Alcohol consumption acutely disrupts cardiovascular regulation, sleep duration, and next-day physical activity, with stronger disruptions in females and younger adults. Behavioral modifications may mitigate these disruptions.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.