wine and health

For this post I decided to address what I see as a neo-prohibitionist and paternalistic trend in medical advice about drinking, with a point-counterpoint on a blog that appeared recently on self.com. I believe the author made a sincere attempt to get the story right but was misinformed by the physicians she quotes. What was not disclosed is that the meta-analysis that this story references was done under the auspices of the Centre for Addictions Research of British Columbia, University of Victoria, an institution with a presumed anti-alcohol bias. An invited commentary with the original publication  came from the Alcohol Research Group in Emeryville, CA, whose mission “seeks to reduce alcohol-related harms.” They lauded the findings, saying that it could help fight back against “renewed calls from certain medical commentators to prescribe moderate drinking.” Disclosure: I count myself among those medical commentators. http://www.self.com/story/red-wine-heart-health-analysis He...

     A very large review out recently has experts proclaiming that we had it all wrong in believing that moderate drinking was a good thing. As I so often do, I cast a dissenting vote on this one, and offer an alternative (and possible more accurate) interpretation.      This latest study, from the University of Victoria in Canada, is impressive in scope and has been widely reported. In it, Tim Stockwell, study author and the director of the Center for Addictions Research of British Columbia, questions the long-established J-shaped curve which demonstrates that moderate drinkers are healthier and outlive nondrinkers and heavy drinkers. He cites what is termed the “abstainer bias,” meaning that people who choose to abstain from alcohol are different than people who quit drinking because of health reasons. Another term for this is the “sick quitter” hypothesis. The result of lumping sick quitters with never drinkers together is a skew toward poor health i...