4 ms·

Can anyone tell if this study avoids the "sick quitter" problem? (https://www.vox.com/2018/4/24/17242720/alcohol-health-risks-facts https://www.vox.com/2018/4/2

• throwaway183738 8y ago
  See also: “sick non-exerciser”. There’s never enough discussion of correlation vs causation in these types of studies.
  • stakhanov 8y ago
    Also makes you wonder if some of those wine/none-wine-alcohol effects are really female/male effects.
    • jdietrich 8y ago
      There are also class and ethnic biases - wine drinkers are disproportionately college-educated and caucasian.
      • stakhanov 8y ago
        ...reading the fulltext now. They were selected from among middle-aged civil servants in London in the late 80s/early 90s so the sample is way more homogeneous than the total population, certainly if the U.S. is what you're thinking of.
        • safanycom 8y ago
          In London... Polluted London, Leaded car fuel London
      • DKnoll 8y ago
        Is that anecdotal or are you citing something? Boxed wine is a favourite of derelict alcoholics because it's so cheap.
• scott_s 8y ago
  I don't think it does. Quoting from the study: "The most intriguing finding from this study was the significantly increased risk of dementia among abstainers, including long term abstainers and participants who became abstainers, and that association was only present in those who abstained from wine. Abstainers were mainly women, had lower education and physical activity, were obese, and had a higher prevalence of cardiometabolic risk factors, all associated with an increased risk of dementia,11,12 which could explain the differences; however, adjustment for confounding factors did not alter the findings." It's not clear what the intersection between "long term abstainers" and "became abstainers" is.