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Moderate alcohol consumption and the risk of mortality

Theodore D Fuller1

  • 1Department of Sociology, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA. fullertd@vt.edu

Demography
|May 20, 2011
PubMed

Insights

Moderate alcohol consumption is linked to lower mortality risk, including from coronary heart disease (CHD). This study, avoiding prior errors, supports a causal relationship between moderate drinking and reduced all-cause mortality.

Area of Science:

  • Epidemiology
  • Public Health
  • Cardiovascular Disease Research

Background:

  • A prevailing view suggested moderate alcohol intake lowers mortality risk, likely causally.
  • Recent reviews questioned this, citing misclassification errors in prior studies and lack of evidence in corrected analyses.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To re-evaluate the association between moderate alcohol consumption and mortality.
  • To address potential misclassification errors identified in previous research.

Main Methods:

  • Prospective cohort study using U.S. National Health Interview Survey data (1997-2000).
  • Included over 124,000 participants with mortality follow-up through 2002 (488,000 person-years).
  • Controlled for various covariates to minimize confounding factors.

Main Results:

  • Moderate alcohol consumption was associated with reduced all-cause mortality.
  • Moderate alcohol consumption was also linked to lower coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality.
  • Findings persisted after accounting for potential errors in prior studies.

Conclusions:

  • This study provides credible evidence supporting a causal link between moderate alcohol consumption and lower all-cause and CHD mortality.
  • The findings suggest that the protective association is not solely due to methodological flaws in previous research.

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