Moderate Drinking and Reduced Mortality - Another Study

Time magazine discusses a new a paper from the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Much of the epidemiological evidence has supported that moderate drinking (1-3 drinks per day) is correlated to reduced total mortality rates, and this study attempts to account for some of the common confounding factors that have been suggested before. For example, it has been suggested that the “abstainer” category in some studies may include individuals who used to be problem drinkers that developed health problems prior to stopping, and in fact maybe the health problems themselves are what caused them to become an abstainer. This paper attempts to account for confounding factors such as this.

One item that Time found particularly interesting was that even accounting for confounding factors, not only did moderate drinkers have the lowest mortality rates, but abstainers mortality rates were even higher than heavy drinkers. I believe most studies have supported the idea of moderate drinkers doing best, but it is interesting to see heavy drinkers doing better than abstainers.

This is kind of interesting in a Paleo context because beer and some liquors like whisky are made from grain. Early humans were probably exposed to ethanol via fermented fruits before the Neolithic age, but it is unclear how much or how frequently it was consumed. Some people have suggested that alcohol production was a motivator in our ancestors becoming agrarian and raising crops to begin with, but I am not sure if there is any evidence for this conjecture.

I have seen some Paleo practitioners argue that alcohol is a Neolithic agent, while others don’t have a problem with it. I tend to be Weak Paleo, so pending further evidence I don’t have much of a problem with non-binge drinking as long you don’t have addictive issues and as long as you don’t do stupid things like driving while under the influence.

Avoiding omega-6 fats and replacing these with saturated and omega-3 fats tend to be protective of the liver (see here and here for more discussion), so a Paleo diet may provide a leg up against some of the negative effects from alcohol.