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Alcohol consumption has been associated with both benefits and harms, but most studies investigated men rather than women, or analyzed data from mixed cohorts composed of males and females, with necessary adjustments for age and sex. Also, most studies focused on one alcohol-related outcome or on a single group of related diseases rather than seeing the entire spectrum of human health. Despite a wealth of information on the outcomes of drinking alcohol, there is still inconsistency on some bottom-line guiding messages related to consumption patterns (quantity, frequency, and stratified combinations), and types of alcohol consumed. Ethnicity, socio-economical features, age and gender may be factors that influence disease protection or risk.

A recent study addressed the outcomes of drinking alcohol in a large cohort which included people from 12 countries in five continents with different socio-economical characteristics [1]. The PURE study included 114,970 adults, of whom 12,904 (11%) were from high-income countries, 24,408 (21%) were from upper-middle-income countries, 48,845 (43%) were from lower-middle-income countries, and 28,813 (25%) were from low-income countries. Mean age was 50 (41–58) years; median follow-up was 4.3 years (IQR 3.0–6.0). In the high- and upper-middle income countries, around 50% of the cohorts were women, but there were only 4% of women in the low-income countries. Overall, 74,685 (65%) participants were never drinkers, 4255 (4%) were former drinkers, and 36,030 (31%) were current drinkers. Of current drinkers, 26,025 (72%) had low intake, 6114 (17%) had moderate intake, and 2931 (8%) had high intake. Associations with mortality (n = 2723), cardiovascular disease (n = 2742), myocardial infarction (n = 979), stroke (n = 817), alcohol-related cancer (n = 764), injury (n = 824), admission to hospital (n = 8786), and for a composite of these outcomes (n = 11 963) were calculated. Data was adjusted for age and sex. Current drinking was associated with reduced myocardial infarction risk (HR 0.76; 95% CI 0.63–0.93), but with increased alcohol-related cancers (HR 1.51; 95% CI 1.22–1.89) and injury (HR 1.29; 95% CI 1.04–1.61). High intake was associated with increased mortality (HR 1.31; 95% CI 1.04–1.66). Compared with never drinkers, significantly reduced hazards for the composite outcome for current drinkers in high-income countries and upper-middle-income countries (HR 0.84; 95% CI 0.77–0.92), but not in lower-middle-income countries and low-income countries, for which there were no reductions in this outcome (HR 1.07; 95% CI 0.95–1.2).

Author(s)

  • Amos Pines
    Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel

Citations

  1. Smyth A, Teo KK, Rangarajan S, et al. Alcohol consumption and cardiovascular disease, cancer, injury, admission to hospital, and mortality: a prospective cohort study. Lancet 2015 Sep 17. Epub ahead of print
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26386538
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