Study: Heavy drinkers outlive non-drinkers

Good news! [Yahoo! News]

One of the most contentious issues in the vast literature about alcohol consumption has been the consistent finding that those who don’t drink actually tend to die sooner than those who do. The standard Alcoholics Anonymous explanation for this finding is that many of those who show up as abstainers in such research are actually former hard-core drunks who had already incurred health problems associated with drinking.

But a new paper in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research suggests that -- for reasons that aren’t entirely clear -- abstaining from alcohol does actually tend to increase one’s risk of dying even when you exclude former drinkers

I’ve often wondered myself if these studies were skewed by “recovering alcoholics”.

Moderate drinking, which is defined as one to three drinks per day, is associated with the lowest mortality rates in alcohol studies.

There’s lots and lots of good stuff over there so go read it.

Via: Drudge