To examine the association between intake of alcohol and risk of adult-onset asthma.

Methods : Using data from two multidisciplinary questionnaire surveys we prospectively studied 19,349 twins, 12–41 years of age, from the nationwide Danish Twin Registry.

Results : The eight-year incidence of asthma was 4.3%. After adjustment for sex, age, BMI, physical activity, educational level and smoking, the risk of new-onset asthma was significantly related to overall alcohol intake in a U-shaped manner with the lowest risk observed in the group with a moderate weekly intake of alcohol (1–6 units/week),p = 0.006. The highest risk of asthma was observed in rare/never drinkers (<1 unit/month), OR = 1.59 (1.25–2.02),p = 0.000, whereas the risk of asthma in heavy daily drinkers (≥4 units/day) was also increased, however not statistically significant, OR = 1.13 (0.54–2.36),p = 0.747. The risk of new-onset asthma was lower for subjects with wine preference (3.3%) compared with beer preference (4.3%) or no preference (4.4%). After multivariable adjustment, wine preference was inversely related to incident asthma compared with beer preference. However, this finding was not statistically significant, OR = 0.87 (0.51–1.46),p = 0.590.

Conclusion : Alcohol intake is associated with new-onset asthma in adults with a U-shaped association between amount of alcohol intake and the risk of asthma.