Alcohol Drinking Patterns and Diet Quality: The 1999–2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

Abstract

Associations between alcohol drinking and cardiovascular disease mortality could be confounded by diet if alcohol drinking and diet are related. Depending on the alcohol measure, alcohol-diet relations may or may not be observed. The authors examined associations between alcohol and diet quality (Healthy Eating Index (HEI) scores) using cross-sectional, nationally representative data from the 1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Weighted analyses included 3,729 participants aged > or =20 years. In adjusted analyses among current alcohol drinkers, as quantity increased from 1 to > or =3 drinks/drinking day, the mean HEI score decreased from 65.3 (95% confidence interval (CI): 63.4, 67.1) to 61.9 (95% CI: 60.5, 63.2). As frequency increased from the lowest quartile to the highest, the mean HEI score increased from 60.9 (95% CI: 58.7, 63.2) to 64.9 (95% CI: 63.4, 66.4). As average volume ((quantity x frequency)/365.25) increased from <1 drink/day to > or =3 drinks/day, the mean HEI score increased from 62.9 (95% CI: 61.2, 64.5) to 65.2 (95% CI: 62.7, 67.8). In stratified analyses, the lowest HEI score, 58.5 (95% CI: 55.5, 61.5), occurred among drinkers who consumed the highest quantity at the lowest frequency. Average volume of alcohol consumed is driven by and masks the contributions of its components. These results suggest the importance of measuring drinking patterns (quantity, frequency, and stratified combinations) in epidemiologic alcohol-diet studies.

Alcohol and head and neck cancer risk in a prospective study

“…Table 1, alcohol drinkers were more likely to smoke and to have received more formal education than non-drinkers, but they consumed less fruit on average. The distribution of alcohol use within the AARP cohort, 24.1% (119 007) non-drinkers, 53.1% (261 889) moderate drinkers of 0 -1 alcoholic beverages per day, 15.2% (74 854) drinkers of 1 -3 alcoholic beverages per day, and 7.5% (37 210) drinkers of 43 drinks per day, was similar to that in the United States overall, as data from the 1999 -2000 NHANES survey indicated 35.5% non-drinkers, 42.7% moderate drinkers of 0 -1 alcoholic beverages per day, 17.9% drinkers of 1 -3 alcoholic beverages per day, and 4.0% drinkers of X3 alcoholic beverages per day (Breslow et al, 2006).…”

“…We tested for an interaction between categorical variables of alcohol intake and gender by using crossproduct terms with a three degree of freedom (df) likelihood ratio w 2 test. Age-adjusted incidence rates were calculated as in Breslow and Day (1987) with 5-year age bands and age-and gender-specific rates standardised to the entire NIH-AARP Diet and Health study population. Table 1, alcohol drinkers were more likely to smoke and to have received more formal education than non-drinkers, but they consumed less fruit on average.…”

Are You What You Eat? Healthy Behaviour and Risk Preferences

“…Although the number of experimental subjects was informed by formal sample size calculations (Breslow 2005) and our sample size is large compared to other similar studies with specific samples of subjects (e. g. Blais & Weber, 2006;Hey & Orme, 1994 ), there is no doubt our sample size is smaller than the number of respondents in similar studies with general or representative samples of the population (Anderson & Mellor, 2008;Guenther et al, 2006a ). Although we are currently extending our approach to representative samples of the UK population, the significant associations found in the present study could be tentatively regarded as lower bounds of the associations between risk preferences and health behaviours (and in particular the HEI) that would emerge considering larger and more general samples of the population.…”

“…12 See, for example, Guenther et al (2007), Garn, Leonard, and Hawthorne (1986), Harrison et al (2015), and Breslow, Guenther, and Smothers (2010) . 13 At the end of each experimental session, we selected randomly one subject in the lab and asked her to draw a ball from an urn that had been prepared for any of the lotteries presented in the selected choice.…”

Psychosocial Factors and Health Behavior among Korean Adults: A Cross-sectional Study

“…However, most of these studies have focused exclusively on one particular behavior. Given that health-related behaviors occur in clusters-individuals engaging in any one negative health behavior are more susceptible to others (Altekruse et al, 1995;Breslow et al, 2006)-an understanding of the psychosocial determinants of these health behavior patterns could lead to better models to explain the development of disease and better interventions to minimize health problems. Hence, the aim of the present study is to determine the relationships between health behaviors, for example, smoking, alcohol consumption, healthy diet, and physical activity, and psychosocial factors.…”