Airport tipple to celebrate the start of a holiday could be bad for your heart - as study finds cabin pressure and alcohol don't mix

There's nothing quite like that first glass of wine or pint of beer to get you in the holiday mood at the airport.

However, it's not all cheery news as alcohol plus cabin pressure may also threaten the heart health of sleeping plane passengers, suggests the first study of its kind.

Researchers found that this combination lowers the amount of oxygen in travellers' blood and raises the heart rate, even in those who are young and healthy.

The bigger the amount drunk, the greater these effects could be, particularly among older passengers and those with medical conditions, they warned. 

The academics suggested that it may be time to consider limiting on-board access to alcohol, particularly on long-haul flights.

For their study, they recruited 48 people aged 18 to 40. Half slept in a laboratory with normal air pressure and the others in an altitude chamber mimicking the cabin pressure of a plane at cruising height.

Then the groups slept for four hours, half in each one having drunk no alcohol while the others drank the equivalent of two cans of beer or two glasses of wine.

Those who slept in normal conditions with no alcohol had steady blood oxygen levels at around a healthy 96 per cent with a sleeping heart rate of 64 beats per minute (bpm). 

But those who drank and were in the altitude chamber had a fall in blood oxygen levels to an average 85 per cent and their heart rates typically rose to nearly 88bmp during sleep.

This compared to an average blood oxygen level of 88 per cent and a sleeping heart rate of 73bpm for those in the altitude chamber who had no alcohol.

The participants slept lying down so the findings may differ for those who fly economy, said a report in the journal Thorax by the team from the Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Cologne, Germany.

They concluded: 'Together these results indicate that, even in young and healthy individuals, the combination of alcohol intake with sleeping under hypobaric conditions (cabin pressure) poses a considerable strain on the cardiac system and might lead to exacerbation of symptoms in patients with cardiac or pulmonary diseases.'

These effects might be even greater in older people, they suggest, adding: 'Cardiovascular symptoms have a prevalence of 7 per cent of inflight medical emergencies, with cardiac arrest causing 58 per cent of aircraft diversions.'