Australian data suggest that choice of beverage relates to lifestyle and personality

EDITOR,--Morten Gronbaek and colleagues suggest that mortality is lower in association with a moderate intake of wine, unchanged in association with a moderate intake of beer, and increased in association with a moderate intake of spirits.1 In their study they used a different reference group of subjects for each beverage considered--a group comprising teetotallers and beer and wine drinkers for the spirits comparison and a group comprising teetotallers and spirits and beer drinkers for the wine comparison--which makes the findings difficult to interpret. More importantly, they consider that confounders are unlikely to explain their results. In a group of working men in Western Australia, …