the participants were almost all men (katlaughing)    63 %, actually
One wonders if they thought of the implications before releasing it. (katlaughing)

Suppressing data (facts) is never a sensible way, even if some people may misunderstand or misrepresent what they read.

That abstainers and heavy drinkers die earlier than moderate drinkers is known since very long. That is no news at all. However, up to now, the routine AA explanation for that fact was that many abstainers are former heavy drinkers and that the reason for the early death is the former alcohol abuse and not the later abstaining. This explanation has now been dealt a blow by a much better controlled study than older studies that for instance had not controlled for the former alcohol intake of abstainers.

An experiment with humans randomly assinging participants to different groups that could solve the question beyond any doubt cannot be done for ethical reasons. So the researchers have to try to eliminate counfounding variables by statistical means.

What are confounding variables in this example? From the article:
...we found among these older adults that at baseline, abstainers were significantly more likely to have had prior drinking problems, to be obese, and to smoke cigarettes than moderate drinkers and significantly higher than moderate drinkers on health problems, depressive symptoms, and avoidance coping. Moreover, at baseline, abstainers were significantly lower than moderate drinkers on SES, physical activity, number of close friends, and quality of friend support and significantly less likely to be married than moderate drinkers.

So, what did they (find)?
Controlling for age and gender, all eleven additional covariates, and the gender–marital status and gender– avoidance coping interactions ... reduced the 20-year mortality risk for abstainers compared to moderate drinkers. After including all covariates, the relative mortality risk for abstainers compared to moderate drinkers dropped by close to one-third and approached that of heavy drinkers.

In other words, the at the first glance much higher death risk of abstainers compared to moderate drinker (means usually: 1-2 drinks a day, in this study: 2-3 drinks a day) shrinks if confounding factors are controlled for. Heavy drinkers do not significantly outlive non-drinkers, once that correction has been made. That's a misrepresentation of the result by GG.

So, what does it all mean? In the words of the article:
an important part of the survival effect for moderate drinking compared to abstention among older adults is explained by the effect of confounding factors associated with alcohol abstention....However, ... moderate alcohol consumption continued to show a significant, though attenuated, association with lower mortality risk.

And that is new, for the routine AA interpretation for the long know better survival rates of moderate drinkers (former heavy drinkers) cannot explain the remaining difference.

But something else could perhaps as the authors note: Although we controlled for a wide range of traditional and nontraditional confounding factors associated with abstention, there may be other important confounding factors that remained uncontrolled. You can only control for what you have thought of.

It is by far the best study on that field up to now (one could make here a remark to Catspaw, but he doesn't want to be taken serious) and adds to many other findings about moderate drinking.

Even driving is statistically a bit safer with a tiny bit of drinking than with no drinking at all (I bet this counts among the results katlaughing would love to suppress). A single small glass of wine (or half a pint of beer) is what I am talking about here and not the 2-3 drinks considered moderate drinking (as the intake by day) just before you enter your car.

And here I come to one of the advantages of abstaining in my eyes. For many people, completely abstaining (at all or before driving) is much easier that drinking at most one small glass (before driving) or only 1-3 drinks a day. In that respect, the AA are right and do a lot of good.

The article will be published in the November issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. (I can access the article here but that access may not be available to the public)


Wolfgang