Older People Reduce Death Risk by 25 Percent with
Daily Moderate Alcohol Consumption
Large study of people over age 55 says any way you
look at it, moderate alcohol is beneficial
March 30, 2009 - Older adults in this case,
people 55 or older - who drink one to two glasses of alcohol per day are
25 percent less at risk of death from any cause than people who drink
more than that and those who do not drink at all, according to a study
by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University
of California, San Francisco.
The apparent protective effects of moderate
drinking have been noted for many years in many previous studies, but
most of those studies have not accounted for other factors that may
influence health and life expectancy, notes lead author Sei J. Lee, MD,
MAS, a staff physician at SFVAMC and an assistant adjunct professor of
medicine at UCSF.
The study authors analyzed the self-reported
drinking habits of 12,519 participants age 55 or older who were
interviewed in 2002 as part of the Health and Retirement Study, an
ongoing national prospective study of health, income, and wealth
sponsored by the National Institute on Aging. The authors then
determined whether the participants were alive or dead in 2006.
For the study, a drink was defined as 12 ounces of
beer, five ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of hard liquor.
Lee says that the study, which appears in online
Early View section of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society,
was the first to control for functional limitation the ability to
carry out basic activities of daily living such as bathing, shopping,
and walking. In a previous study, Lee demonstrated that degree of
functional limitation is a powerful predictor of mortality.
This study adjusted for income, wealth, education,
and ability to carry out activities of daily living.
We also looked at educational level, income, and
overall wealth because older, retired people can have low incomes but
substantial financial assets, says Lee.
The moderate drinkers turned out to be less
functionally limited, better educated, and have higher incomes and more
wealth all factors that decrease mortality than either non-drinkers
or heavier drinkers.
Based on drinking habits alone, the moderate
drinkers were 50 percent less likely to have died from any cause at the
end of the study. After adjustment for the other factors, the moderate
drinkers were still 25 percent less likely to have died.
The study also discounted an observation made in
some previous studies that extremely light drinking around one drink
per week was associated with improved health and mortality. Once we
accounted for all the other factors, that benefit went away, reports
Lee.
Lee cautions that his results are open to question
because it was a retrospective study based on self-reported behavior. He
says a different type of study is needed to determine whether moderate
drinking actually confers potential health benefits.
What we call for in the paper is an intervention
trial in which we randomly ask non-drinkers to either begin moderate
drinking or continue to abstain, and then compare them over time, says
Lee.
People have made the argument that such a study
carries the risk of creating harm for the people we ask to drink, which
is true. However, if we find that alcohol is as helpful as it appears to
be, there is a substantial overall benefit to be gained. Its really the
only way to find out.
Co-authors of the study are Rebecca L. Sudore, MD,
and Brie A. Williams, MD, of SFVAMC and UCSF; Karla Lindquist, MS, of
UCSF; and Helen L. Chen, MD, and Kenneth E. Covinsky, MD, MPH, of SFVAMC
and UCSF.
The study was supported by funds from the National
Institute on Aging, the National Institutes of Health, and the Hartford
Geriatrics Health Outcomes Research Scholars Awards Program. Some of the
funds were administered by the Northern California Institute for
Research and Education.
NCIRE - the Veterans Health Research Institute - is
the largest research institute associated with a VA medical center. Its
mission is to improve the health and well-being of veterans and the
general public by supporting a world-class biomedical research program
conducted by the UCSF faculty at SFVAMC.
SFVAMC has the largest medical research program in
the national VA system, with more than 200 research scientists, all of
whom are faculty members at UCSF.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting
health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level
education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in
patient care.
Keep up with the latest news for senior citizens, baby
boomers
March 30, 2009 - Older adults in this case,
people 55 or older - who drink one to two glasses of alcohol per day are
25 percent less at risk of death from any cause than people who drink
more than that and those who do not drink at all, according to a study
by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University
of California, San Francisco.
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