Drinking Alcohol May Extend Your Life

Adolytsi writes "MSNBC has an interesting article on an Italian study on alcoholism. While the obvious notion of overconsumption of alcohol being detrimental to one's health is supported, apparently drinking it in moderation can actually extend your lifespan. A study on over 1 million drinkers and 94,000 deaths yielded the results: "According to the data, drinking a moderate amount of alcohol — up to four drinks per day in men and two drinks per day in women — reduces the risk of death from any cause by roughly 18 percent, the team reports in the Archives of Internal Medicine. However, "things radically change" when consumption goes beyond these levels, study leader Dr. Augusto Di Castelnuovo, from Catholic University of Campobasso, said in a statement. Men who have more than four drinks per day and women who have more than two drinks per day not only lose the protection that alcohol affords, but they increase their risk of death, the data indicates.""

Comments

There was something about Correlation...

[Anonymous Coward]

.. and Causation. Apparently the two are not the same, despite the wording on the MSNBC page.

It's entirely likely that the conditions that would result in someone drinking moderatly every day would also result in better health DESPITE the alcohol. For example, poor people without health care probably can't afford to drink wine with meals. They might live shorter lives, but to say it's because they aren't getting the alcohol is a huge leap of faith.

This is not to disparage any real health effects of alcohol or some alcoholic beverages... it's just to say that to draw any conclusions from such an uncontrolled experiement is stupid and unscientific.

http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/ 166/22/2437

If this is the study referenced, it doesn't look like any of those factors were addressed... I don't know HOW they can say that such correlations prove anything.