Researchers Question "Healthy" Drinking Benefits
Updated October 21, 2014.
Studies which have reported that people who drink alcohol moderately have fewer heart attacks than those who abstain may have been flawed because the abstainers used in most of those studies were people who quit drinking for health or age reasons, according to an international team of researchers.
Researchers from the United States, Canada, and Australia looked at 54 studies that examined the link between alcohol consumption and health risks and premature death to determine if these studies contained a "consistent and serious error."
In many of the studies that compared moderate drinkers to "abstainers" it was found that the abstainers were people who had cut down or quit drinking due to declining health, frailty, medication use or disability.
The researchers' theory was that studies showed a higher death rate for the "abstainers" was because of the poor health of the abstainers rather than any protective effect of moderate alcohol drinking.
The researchers found only seven studies that included only long-term non-drinkers in the "abstainers" group. Within those seven studies, results showed no reduction in risk of death among the moderate drinkers compared with abstainers.
"The widely held belief that light or moderate drinking protects against coronary heart disease has had great influence on alcohol policy and clinical advice of doctors to their patients throughout the world," said Tim Stockwell, PhD, of the Centre for Addictions Research at the University of Victoria. "These findings suggest that caution should be exerted in recommending light drinking to abstainers because of the possibility that this result may be more apparent than real."
The authors of the new study said their report does not disprove that moderate drinking may benefit health, but that those benefits may have been exaggerated. They suggest more well-designed research in the future with more precise assessments of the participants alcohol intake and abstinence.
Source: The study was published the May 2006 issue of Addiction Research and Theory. See also UCSF News Release.
Studies which have reported that people who drink alcohol moderately have fewer heart attacks than those who abstain may have been flawed because the abstainers used in most of those studies were people who quit drinking for health or age reasons, according to an international team of researchers.
Researchers from the United States, Canada, and Australia looked at 54 studies that examined the link between alcohol consumption and health risks and premature death to determine if these studies contained a "consistent and serious error."
In many of the studies that compared moderate drinkers to "abstainers" it was found that the abstainers were people who had cut down or quit drinking due to declining health, frailty, medication use or disability.
The researchers' theory was that studies showed a higher death rate for the "abstainers" was because of the poor health of the abstainers rather than any protective effect of moderate alcohol drinking.
The researchers found only seven studies that included only long-term non-drinkers in the "abstainers" group. Within those seven studies, results showed no reduction in risk of death among the moderate drinkers compared with abstainers.
"The widely held belief that light or moderate drinking protects against coronary heart disease has had great influence on alcohol policy and clinical advice of doctors to their patients throughout the world," said Tim Stockwell, PhD, of the Centre for Addictions Research at the University of Victoria. "These findings suggest that caution should be exerted in recommending light drinking to abstainers because of the possibility that this result may be more apparent than real."
Light Drinkers More Healthy
"We know that older people who are light drinkers are usually healthier than their non-drinking peers," said Kaye Fillmore, PhD, of the University of California - San Francisco School of Nursing. "Our research suggests light drinking is a sign of good health, not necessarily its cause. Many people reduce their drinking as they get older for a variety of health reasons."The authors of the new study said their report does not disprove that moderate drinking may benefit health, but that those benefits may have been exaggerated. They suggest more well-designed research in the future with more precise assessments of the participants alcohol intake and abstinence.
Source: The study was published the May 2006 issue of Addiction Research and Theory. See also UCSF News Release.
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