X-Message-Number: 20318 From: "Ben Best" <> Subject: More crappy epidemiological studies about alcohol Date: 16 Oct 2002 02:35:03 -0700 > Message #20316 > Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2002 21:43:34 -0700 > Subject: Beer is better than wine > From: (Tim Freeman) > > This Yahoo story claims that beer drinking > correlates positively with dementia in old > age, and wine drinking correlates negatively. > Correlation isn't causation, but in the absence > of any better evidence it's prudent to prefer > wine, since you don't want dementia. > http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=571&e=20&u=/nm/20021014/hl_nm/dementia_alcohol_dc Studies on alcoholic beverages are the lowest form of epidemiology. A *scientific* study of alcoholic beverage consumption and health would be randomized (no differences between subject groups other than the beverages under study), double-blind (neither the subjects nor the experimenters know which individuals are receiving beer, wine or placebo -- nor which are light drinkers or heavy drinkers), longitudinal (same individuals over time) and long-term (individuals designated non-drinkers, light drinkers, heavy drinkers, wine drinkers, beer drinkers, etc do not change their drinking patterns during the years of the study). I doubt that there will ever be anything close to a scientific study of alcoholic beverages adhering to the above standard. Instead of science we get these studies of self-reported drinking habits that are absurdly loaded with proxy variables. Beer drinkers are known to be less educated and of lower socio-economic status than wine drinkers. They also smoke more and exercise less. If you want the antioxidants of wine, drink grape juice or green tea -- there are lots of options without having to drink alcohol. An analysis of the faults of epidemiological studies of alcoholic beverages and the health consequence of consuming them can be found on my website: http://www.benbest.com/health/alcohol.html -- Ben Best Life Extensionist and Non-drinker Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=20318