Alcohol Consumption and Mortality in U.S. Adults

To the Editor: Thun and coworkers (Dec. 11 issue) 1 report some benefits of moderate alcohol consumption in nearly 500,000 subjects who were middle-aged or older. This is a large group, but an even larger group was excluded because alcohol consumption was not quantified or data were missing. This cr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe New England journal of medicine Vol. 338; no. 19; pp. 1385 - 1386
Main Author Lowenfels, A B
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Massachusetts Medical Society 07.05.1998
Subjects
Aged
Alcohol Drinking - epidemiology
Bias
Deception
Humans
Middle Aged
Mortality
Neoplasms - mortality
Surveys and Questionnaires
United States - epidemiology
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Summary:To the Editor: Thun and coworkers (Dec. 11 issue) 1 report some benefits of moderate alcohol consumption in nearly 500,000 subjects who were middle-aged or older. This is a large group, but an even larger group was excluded because alcohol consumption was not quantified or data were missing. This creates a problem, because the listed death rates for the excluded subjects with unclassified drinking habits are higher than those in the analytic cohort. We can only guess at the consumption habits of the excluded subjects, but a person unwilling to answer questions about his or her alcohol consumption is more likely . . .
Bibliography:SourceType-Other Sources-1
content type line 63
ObjectType-Correspondence-1
ObjectType-Commentary-2
ISSN:0028-4793
1533-4406
DOI:10.1056/NEJM199805073381913