Objective To investigate whether people who buy wine buy healthier food items than those who buy beer. Design Cross sectional study. Setting Supermarkets in Denmark. Data Information on number, type of item, and total charge from 3.5 million transactions over a period of six months. Results Wine buyers bought more olives, fruit and vegetables, poultry, cooking oil, and low fat cheese, milk, and meat than beer buyers. Beer buyers bought more ready cooked dishes, sugar, cold cuts, chips, pork, butter or margarine, sausages, lamb, and soft drinks than wine buyers. Conclusions Wine buyers made more purchases of healthy food items than people who buy beer.
Neither ethanol nor red wine polyphenols reduced mature atherosclerosis or changed the content of collagen in plaques in apolipoprotein E-deficient mice.
Purpose
This paper aims to evaluate the use of Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses for judging the effects of alcohol consumption on the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD).
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents a review of methodology for MR and describes its early application to judging health effects of alcohol, current uses and a recommended approach of combining MR results with those from observational and experimental studies.
Findings
Early applications of MR to health effects of alcohol consumption were inadequate for providing unbiased results, but newer attempts using polygenic scores show promise. It is important to combine data from MR analyses with those from observational and experimental studies to obtain an unbiased and scientifically sound estimate of alcohol’s effects on health.
Practical implications
Giving advice to the public regarding alcohol consumption must be based on accurate, unbiased scientific data; this paper describes attempts to use MR for achieving this goal.
Social implications
Given that light-to-moderate alcohol intake is associated with a lower risk of CHD, type II diabetes mellitus and total mortality, it is important to be able to evaluate both the benefits and harms from alcohol before giving advice regarding drinking.
Originality/value
This is part of a group of three papers dealing with the potential health benefits and harms associated with alcohol consumption.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review the conceptual and methodological challenges of a J-shaped association between alcohol consumption (AC), coronary heart disease (CHD) and all-cause mortality. In associated papers in this journal, Skovenborg et al., 2021 reviews the evidence for the J-shaped curve, and Ellison et al., 2021 examines the advantages and drawbacks of Mendelian randomization studies of the J-shaped curve.
Design/methodology/approach
A number of methodological problems are common in observational research in general, and some of the methodological problems suggested for the J-shaped alcohol-CHD-associations are discussed. The extent of the methodological problems in studies of the J-shaped curve is reviewed, and the possibility that the J-shaped curve is an artifact created by reverse causality and residual confounding is discussed. Further, the issue of interaction with drinking pattern and type of alcohol is discussed.
Findings
Imprecise categorization of alcohol intake information seems to have had little effect on the J-shaped alcohol-CHD-associations, nor has it affected the ability of these studies to show increasing mortality from a range of causes with increasing AC. The problem of “sick quitters” has been resolved by large studies using lifelong abstainers or infrequent drinkers as reference group. Many studies lack information on drinking patterns with regard to regular, moderate consumption versus binge drinking. Stratified analyses by important risk factors for CHD have not significantly changed the J-shaped association observed in most epidemiologic studies.
Originality/value
Potential biases and residual confounding probably do not overcome the J-shaped alcohol-CDH-association observed in most epidemiologic studies; however, the existence of a J-shaped curve is challenged by some degree of uncertainty. The actual review together with the associated papers by Skovenborg et al., 2021 and Ellison et al., 2021 offers a possibility to “update your priors” and achieve greater certainty when giving your patients information on the pros and cons of alcohol intake.
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