Citation

Rehm J, Roerecke M. Alcohol Alcohol. 2013; 48(4): 509-513.

Affiliation

Social and Epidemiological Research (SER) Department, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), 33 Russell Street, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 2S1.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/alcalc/agt021

PMID

23531718

Abstract

Alcohol consumption has been linked with considerable mortality, and reduction of drinking, especially of heavy drinking, has been suggested as one of the main measures to reduce alcohol-attributable mortality. Aggregate-level studies including but not limited to natural experiments support this suggestion; however, causality cannot be established in ecological analysis. The results of individual-level cohort studies are ambiguous. On the other hand, randomized clinical trials with problem drinkers show that brief interventions leading to a reduction of average drinking also led to a reduction of all-cause mortality within 1 year. The results of these studies were pooled and a model for reduction of drinking in heavy drinkers and its consequences for all-cause mortality risk was estimated. Ceteris paribus, the higher the level of drinking, the stronger the effects of a given reduction. Implications for interventions and public health are discussed.

Language: en