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SWINGBELLIES! Take heed AGAIN: Booze shortens your life

Alcohol may help in some ways, but when the sums are done you'll end up short

It might be time to bury the “J-curve” – not the hockey stick that confuses the climate debate, but one that booze-pimpers like – according to a study that just hit the BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal).

The curve in question is the one that says “moderate drinking is the best”, based on studies purporting to show that teetotallers have higher death rates than moderate drinkers, and moderates have lower death rates than booze-hounds.

The killjoy new study, here, was put together by researchers from University College, London; the University of Southampton; and the University of Sydney.

Its gloomy conclusions:

  • The moderate drinker benefit believed to exist on a population-wide basis “may in part be attributable” to poor control-group selection and “weak adjustment for confounders” (ie, factors that skew results);
  • Any beneficial moderate-drinking effects might only apply to women over 65 years old; and
  • Even that group's effects “may … be explained by the effect of selection biases.

The new research doesn't discount point-studies saying alcohol (or particular drinks, such as red wine) might benefit one bit of the body or another. Hence a study suggesting red wine reduces fatty deposits in the liver might still stand.

However, by taking ten waves of the Health Survey for England and running the numbers through age stratification, personal, socioeconomic and lifestyle factors, and adjusting other effects such as excluding former drinkers, protective effects were attenuated to pretty much nothing.

Also: “most protective effects disappeared where calculated in comparison with various definitions of occasional drinkers”.

Sigh … ®

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