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Population study: followed a group

Study that followed 135,103 older UK drinkers: moderate-risk drinking linked to higher death risk

Ortolá and colleagues · JAMA network open · 2024

Original title: Alcohol Consumption Patterns and Mortality Among Older Adults With Health-Related or Socioeconomic Risk Factors.

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What the study found

Points to harm

Moderate-risk drinking was linked to higher all-cause death (HR, 1.10; 95% CI, 1.03-1.18) and cancer death. High-risk drinking also had higher heart death (HR, 1.21; 95% CI, 1.04-1.41). No links for low or moderate drinking in people without risk factors.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Population study: followed a group
Who or what was studied
135,103 people · 135,103 UK drinkers aged 60 and older, followed 12 years
What was tested
Low-risk, moderate-risk and high-risk drinking vs occasional drinking (2.86 g a day or less)
What it measured
The question itself: heart disease and death
Who has a stake
No stake declared
No conflicts reported.
Journal
JAMA network open, 2024
Source
PubMed record 39133491. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • –Shows a link, not a cause: people chose their own habits, and other differences between them may explain the result.
  • ✓Followed people over time, so habits were recorded before the outcome happened.
  • ✓Large: 135,103 people.
  • ✓Measured the question itself: heart disease and death.
  • ✓No competing interests declared.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

Each dot is one on-topic paper on this question. Steps near the top answer the question more directly.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: heart disease

    0

    Not done yet. This is the step that would answer the question.

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  4. Population studies

    5

    3 benefit, 1 mixed, 1 harm

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  5. Blood levels and genes

    6

    1 mixed, 2 no difference, 3 harm

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “Is moderate drinking good or bad for your heart?”

Not shown to help; may harm.

Confidence: very low. Based on 21 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer

Of the other 4 papers on the same step: 3 benefit, 1 mixed. This one found harm. It differs from most of them.

Other papers on the same step

See all 21 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The two reads agreed on every checked field. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
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