BMJ 1995;311:1166-1167 (28 October)

Letters

Binge drinkers should have been identified separately

EDITOR,--In Morten Gronbaek and colleagues' paper on the effects of different alcoholic beverages on mortality it is not clear whether the monthly and weekly drinkers included binge drinkers.1 It has been suggested that binge drinking may negate the possible attenuating effect of alcohol on coronary artery disease.2 If these subjects were excluded the relative risk for monthly and weekly drinkers may be even lower than that observed.

More importantly, the authors compared the effects of different levels of drinking with those of not drinking only that particular type of alcoholic beverage. For example, wine drinkers were compared with a heterogeneous reference group consisting of non-drinkers, beer drinkers, spirits drinkers, and beer and spirits drinkers. The drinkers, again, could have ranged from those who drank beer or spirits only once a month to those who had more than five drinks a day. This would falsely increase the risk among those who . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

Mortality associated with moderate intakes of wine, beer, or spirits
Morten Gronbaek, Allan Deis, Thorkild I A Sorensen, Ulrik Becker, Peter Schnohr, and Gorm Jensen
BMJ 1995 310: 1165-1169. [Abstract] [Full Text]

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