mined the death rates from coronary heart disease. In 1973, 1823 men completed a drinking questionnaire. After twelve years 159 men died, 74 from coronary heart disease. The results showed that moderate drinkers have lower death rates then both non-drinkers and heavy drinkers. In 1997, the New England Journal of Medicine published another prospective study that began in 1982 with 490,000 men and women. The Cancer Prevention Study II was made up of approximately 250,000 women and 238,000 men. The participants were followed for nine years and 46,000 deaths resulted. The conclusion was that in middle-aged and elderly populations, moderate alcohol consumption slightly reduced overall mortality, this benefit depended on a number of other risk factors. As expected the death rate was significantly higher for those participants who reported at least four drinks daily. The causes of death included cirrhosis, alcohol related cancers, and external causes, such as accidents and suicide for men only. The death rates from all cardiovascular disease was thirty to forty percent lower among both men and women who reported one drink daily. The largest reduction in mortality rate from coronary heart disease was among those moderate drinkers who reported pre-existing heart disease or other risk of cardiovascular disease. This article generated an editorial in the same issue titled the Hazards and Benefits of Alcohol . The author of the editorial characterized alcohol inter alia as a “drug that contributes extensively to illness, violence, to social disorder, and mortality.” The article focuses on the issues that the research does not answer such as whether those who have a high risk for cardiovascular disease might be even better off with diet and exercise, whether the non-drinkers reformed alcoholics, and whether the participants were honest about their alcohol consumption. The editorial ends with the comment the alcohol industry is the only group to actually call for increased consumption.
Preliminary research focused on health effects in men, however, there were a number of studies that looked at the health effects of women. Evidence suggests that one of the negative effects unique to women is the increased incidence of breast cancer. In 1992, the American Journal of Epidemiology reported that there was an increased risk in breast cancer among postmenopausal women who consumed alcohol. The study suggested that the link might be to the use of noncontraceptive estrogen as opposed to just alcohol and age. In 1995, the New England Journal of Medicine published the results of a prospective study similar to that reported in 1992 for men. The study concluded that light to moderate alcohol consumption in women was associated with lower death rate from cardiovascular disease and heavy drinking resulted in a higher death rate from other factors such as breast cancer and cirrhosis. The study indicated that benefit was most apparent among women who were 50 years of age or older. A study on women from age 25-42 indicated that there is unlikely to be a significant effect between alcohol and breast cancer among premenopausal women, but that a modest effect cannot be discounted.
In 1999, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism published some interesting information in their Alcohol Alert. What makes this information so noteworthy is that this organization has included the positive health benefits of moderate consumption in this volume of the alert. They reported that a review of epidemiological data from twenty countries indicated that there was a twenty to forty percent reduction in coronary heart disease in moderate drinkers compared to non-drinkers. The report goes on to explore whether this is merely a connection or if alcohol causes this reduction. There is little data on whether the alcohol consumption of the moderate drinker is in fact an effect of alcohol or if the effect is due to a combination of healthy lifestyle choices. The report also provides an explanation as to how alcohol consumption may work in the body to lower the ris