So you've been to a party and there's always that one person who says "I don't drink alcohol" and totally bring down the mood of the conversation you're trying to have. Bummer.
There are people who believe drinking alcohol is a travesty, immoral, etc...but guess what??? Their morality may be dead against science and may also be shortening their life. For heavy drinkers this may also be true as excessive alcohol intake can lead to some severe conditions that will shorten your life. But it's very interesting what research shows for those that drink a moderate amount of alcohol.
According 
to the recent study published in the journal Clinical and Experimental Research, epidemiological research suggests that moderate to high alcohol consumption is associated with a reduced overall mortality risk compared to non- and light drinkers.
Their study included over 1,800 people, aged 55 to 65 when the study began. Sixty-nine percent of the participants were men. The subjects were followed for 20 years.
Surprisingly, the group with the lowest mortality rate was moderate drinkers, who had one to three alcoholic drinks per day, followed by heavy drinkers, and then light drinkers, while non-drinkers had the highest mortality rate of them all.
“Controlling only for age and gender, compared to moderate drinkers, abstainers had a more than 2 times increased mortality risk, heavy drinkers had 70% increased risk, and light drinkers had 23% increased risk.
A model controlling for former problem drinking status, existing health problems, and key sociodemographic and social-behavioral factors, as well as for age and gender, substantially reduced the mortality effect for abstainers compared to moderate drinkers.
However, even after adjusting for all covariates, abstainers and heavy drinkers continued to show increased mortality risks of 51 and 45%, respectively, compared to moderate drinkers.”
Dr. Mercola has a great analysis of the entire issue which you can read by clicking here or copying and pasting this link into your browser:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/09/14/why-do-heavy-drinkers-outlive-nondrinkers.aspxWith that said... Here's To Your Health
Cheers!
Dr. T
Follow Me on Twitter: http://api.twitter.com/ToddNarsonDC
Dr. Narson is a 2-term past president of the Florida Chiropractic Association’s Council on Sports Injuries, Physical Fitness & Rehabilitation and was honored as the recipient of the coveted Chiropractic Sports Physician of the Year Award in 1999-2000. He practices in Miami Beach, Florida at the Miami Beach Family & Sports Chiropractic Center; A Facility for Natural Sports Medicine.
