A study of drinking in the United Kingdom by researchers in Spain and Boston is being used by public health officials to call for action by governments, from taxation to advocacy to enforcement, that would lead to less alcohol consumption.
“This cohort study in 135,103 older drinkers found that even low-risk drinking was associated with higher mortality among older adults with health-related or socioeconomic risk factors,” the authors wrote in the paper’s key findings.
The researchers did concede, however, that “wine preference and drinking only with meals were associated with attenuating the excess mortality associated with alcohol consumption.”
The paper appeared in JAMA Network Open, a publication of the American Medical Association, on Aug. 12. In interviews, the paper’s lead author went further than the paper’s at times tentative findings dared to.
“We did not…
