Review: High alcohol intake increases mortality in both men and women

摘要

The meta-analysis by Di Castelnuovo and colleagues is the latest andnlargest such analysis and reaffirms the J-shaped association between selfreportednalcohol consumption and mortality. I will ignore potential reasonsnwhy this finding may be qualitatively incorrect, such as the possibilitynof publication bias and issues related to the statistical analysis, and acceptnthat, when measured this way, there is a J-shaped association.nThe question for primary care practitioners such as myself is whethernthese data are sufficiently strong to infer a causal relation between alcoholnintake and mortality that should change clinical practice. In othernwords, should we encourage nondrinkers to start consuming 1 drinknper day to lower their risk for premature death? I believe there are atnleast 2 reasons why we should not.