The association between self-reported alcohol intake spective assessment of alcohol intake at the time of and the risk of future liver disease was studied in a large diagnosis of liver damage, it has been observed that population-based prospective cohort with 12-year fol-the risk of developing liver damage increased by the low-up. Alcohol intake was assessed in 13,285 men and amount consumed, and the minimum alcohol intake women aged 30 to 79 years by a self-administered ques-associated with a significant increase in risk ranged tionnaire. Diagnoses indicating alcohol-induced liver from 40 to 80 g daily in most studies, 3-9 but for methoddisease (n Å 261) or alcohol-induced cirrhosis (n Å 124) ological reasons the interpretation of these studies is were obtained from death certificates and the hospital difficult. 1 A prospective study based on an American discharge register, and data were analyzed by multiplihealth care program confirmed the dose-dependent ascative Poisson regression models. The total cumulated sociation, but both alcohol intake and occurrence of observation time was 130,558 person-years. The overall incidence rates of alcohol-induced cirrhosis were 0.2% liver disease may have been considerably underreper year in men and 0.03% per year in women. The nadir ported. 10 In another prospective study, heavy drinkers of the estimated relative risk of developing liver disease showed no further increase in risk of developing cirrhowas observed at an alcohol intake of 1 to 6 beverages sis by increasing alcohol intake. 11 per week, and above this level a steep increase in relaSeveral studies have shown that women have more tive risk was observed. The risk function was indepen-advanced liver disease at time of diagnosis, run a more dent of age and stable over time. The level of alcohol severe course of the disease, and report a shorter hisintake above which the relative risk was significantly tory of alcohol abuse and a smaller intake of alcohol greater than 1 was observed at 7 to 13 beverages per than men. 5,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] This has been taken as evidence for week for women and 14 to 27 beverages per week for women being more prone to develop alcohol-induced men. Women had a significantly higher relative risk of developing alcohol-related liver disease than men for liver disease than men. If we assume that men and any given level of alcohol intake. We observed a dose-women have the same threshold for development of dependent increase in relative risk of developing alco-liver damage and that women drink less than men, hol-induced liver disease for both men and women, with then those women who develop alcohol-induced liver the steepest increase among women. In the general pop-disease would on average have a lower alcohol intake ulation, self-reported current alcohol intake is a good than men with alcohol-induced liver disease. To estipredictor of the future risk of alcohol-induced liver dis-mate the risk at the individual level, the distribution ease. (HEPATOLOGY 1996;23:1025-1029 of alcoho...

Objective-To examine the association between intake of different types of alcoholic drinks and mortality.Design-Prospective population study with baseline assessment of alcohol intake, smoking habit, income, education, and body mass index, and 10-12 years' follow up ofmortality.Setting-Copenhagen city heart study, Denmark. Subjects-6051 men and 7234 women aged 30-70years.Main outcome measure-Number and time of cause-specific deaths from 1976 to 1988.Results-The risk of dying steadily decreased with an increasing intake of wine-from a relative risk of 1*00 for the subjects who never drank wine to 0 51 (95% confidence interval 0-32 to 0.81) for those who drank three to five glasses a day. Intake of neither beer nor spirits, however, was associated with reduced risk. For spirits intake the relative risk of dying increased from 1*00 for those who never drank to 1-34 (1.05 to 1.71) for those with an intake of three to five drinks a day. The effects of the three types of alcoholic drinks seemed to be independent of each other, and no significant interactions existed with sex, age, education, income, smoking, or body mass index. Wine drinking showed the same relation to risk of death from cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease as to risk ofdeath from all causes.Conclusion-Low to moderate intake of wine is associated with lower mortality from cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease and other causes. Similar intake of spirits implied an increased risk, while beer drinking did not affect mortality. IntroductionDuring the past decade several large population studies have shown a U shaped relation between alcohol intake and mortality for both men and women throughout adulthood.'-In a recent study we found that the U shape persisted when the effects of other risk factors, such as smoking and obesity, were controlled for.7 Furthermore, neither a higher prevalence of disease at baseline nor an increased number of former

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