Intake of beer, wine and spirits and risk of heavy drinking and alcoholic cirrhosis.

Morten Grønbæk,Majken K Jensen,Thorkild I A Sørensen,Ditte Johansen,Ulrik Becker

doi:10.4067/s0716-97602004000200004

Abstract

Studies have suggested that wine drinkers are at lower risk of death than beer or spirit drinkers. The aim of this study is to examine whether the risk of becoming a heavy drinker or developing alcoholic cirrhosis differs among individuals who prefer different types of alcoholic beverages. In a longitudinal setting we found that both the risk of becoming a heavy or excessive drinker (above 14 and 21 drinks per week for women and above 21 and 35 drinks per week for men) and the risk of developing alcoholic cirrhosis depended on the individuals preference of wine, beer or spirits. We conclude that moderate wine drinkers appear to be at lower risk of becoming heavy and excessive drinkers and that this may add to the explanation of the reported beverage-specific differences in morbidity and mortality.

Highlights

A light to moderate intake of alcohol has been suggested to reduce morbidity and mortality [1,2,3,4]
When analyzing the separate effects of wine intake adjusting for beer and spirits intake as well as adjusting for the other covariates, we found a relative risk for developing cirrhosis of 0.5 (95 % confidence limits 0.4-0.7) in the group drinking 1 to 7 drinks of wine per week and a relative risk of 0.6 (95 % confidence limits 0.3-1.0) and 2.5 (95 % confidence limits 1.1-5.7) respectively for the two groups drinking 8 to 21 drinks and more than 21 drinks of wine per week
An increase in risk of cirrhosis with increasing total alcohol intake was observed in all categories of wine percent

Summary

Introduction

A light to moderate intake of alcohol has been suggested to reduce morbidity and mortality [1,2,3,4]. The differences in morbidity and mortality may to some extent be explained by confounding factors such as diet [13], subjective health [14], binge versus steady drinking [15], or other correlates of preferred type of alcoholic beverage. Another explanation for the differences may be that beer and spirit drinkers could be more inclined to increase their level of alcohol consumption. Apart from that, it was the aim of this investigation to study whether there were different effects of the different types of alcoholic beverages on the risk of alcoholic cirrhosis

Objectives

Results

Conclusion