ALCOHOL ABSTAINERS NOT AT RISK

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- There's good news for teetotalers. A new report
suggests that -- despite past studies -- people who abstain from alcohol are
not at a greater risk of premature death compared with those who drink
moderately. At least not because they avoid alcohol.

Instead, researchers claim that such studies did not adequately control for
other risk factors in nondrinkers. For example, the studies lumped former
alcoholics and long-term abstainers together in the category of nondrinkers,
according to a report in the journal Addiction.

A new analysis of 10 studies found that those groups are very different.
Male former drinkers who now abstain are more likely to be heavier smokers,
depressed, unemployed, have a lower socioeconomic status, and are more
likely to use marijuana compared with long-term abstainers. And women are
also more likely to be heavier smokers and in poorer health if they were
former drinkers, according to the study, which was funded by the National
Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).

"Our findings cast some doubt on the conclusions of other research that
there are protective effects of light or moderate drinking," said lead study
author Dr. Kaye Fillmore in a statement released by the University of
California San Francisco (UCSF). "These effects have been accepted 'fact'
without much attention paid to their many criticisms from the research
community," said Fillmore, a professor in the social and behavioral sciences
at the UCSF.

The study did not look at mortality risk in long-term abstainers compared
with former drinkers. But such factors may be behind the greater mortality
risk seen in abstainers, as opposed to alcohol lowering the mortality risk.

"When these factors are statistically accounted for, abstainers of either
type are not at higher risk for premature mortality than light drinkers,"
Fillmore said. In the new study, light drinking was considered one drink per
occasion for women and two drinks per occasion for men, with less than 15
occasions per month.

"What seems clear is the importance of recognizing that abstainers do not
constitute a homogeneous group with respect to social position, health or
social integration," the authors concluded. SOURCE: Addiction
(1998;93:183-203)

Copyright © 1998 Reuters Limited.