Meta-analysis on Alcohol

When talking about alcohol consumption, there was a recent meta-analysis of prospective studies on alcohol dosing and total mortality performed and published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The researches looked at thirty-four studies on men and women, for a total of 1,015,835 subjects and 94,533 deaths.

The results showed a J-shaped relationship between alcohol and total mortality in both men and women.

Consumption of alcohol, up to 4 drinks per day in men and 2 drinks per day in women, was inversely associated with total mortality.

Higher doses of alcohol were associated with increased mortality.

The inverse association in women disappeared at doses lower than in men.

The findings of this meta-analysis confirm the hazards of excess drinking and continue to indicate a potential window of alcohol intake that may confer a net beneficial effect of drinking in terms of survival.

The analysis did not look at any other negative effect of alcohol such as legal problems, interpersonal and family problems, job performance or other addictions; so let’s keep the results in perspective.

Moderation, moderation, moderation!!!