Mortality associated with moderate intakes of wine, beer, or spirits

Abstract

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

Comparison of assessment methods for self-reported alcohol consumption in health interview surveys

“…Several studies have shown that the type of alcohol (e.g. beer, wine or spirits) effects the association between alcohol intake and, mortality and morbidity (Grønbaek et al, 1995(Grønbaek et al, , 2000(Grønbaek et al, , 2004Prescott et al, 1999;Klatsky et al, 2003). Beverage-specific effects on health outlines the importance of collecting information on type of alcohol in epidemiological studies.…”

The action of red wine and purple grape juice on vascular reactivity is independent of plasma lipids in hypercholesterolemic patients

“…Although the benefits of alcohol consumption are partially related to its ability to increase high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol and to inhibit platelets, some studies indicate that the greatest protection is due to red wine (RW), rather than beer or spirits (8)(9)(10). This suggests that phenolic acids, polyphenols, and or flavonoids may confer additional benefits.…”

Comparison of the phenolic content and total antioxidant activity in wines as determined by spectrophotometric methods

“…Among alcoholic beverages, red wine has been reported to be more protective against coronary heart disease than other alcoholic beverages (Gronbaek et al 1995). Different wines have different quantities and spectra of native antioxidants and therefore different health benefits.…”