Can Beer Drinking Prolong Your Life?

The relationship between moderate drinking and mortality has long been controversial. And studies on the subject are all over the place…

But since we don’t see ourselves abstaining from alcohol any time soon, we tend to gravitate towards whatever good news we can find.

And now the results of a new, large-scale study are in and it.s some good alcohol-related news, as long as you’re old.

The new report which was published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research has found that “moderate or occasional drinkers had lower mortality rates than people who abstain from alcohol.”

That’s right people who drink moderately were found to live longer than those who didn’t drink at all…

And although its authors are “cautious about potential biases in their own research and say that more research is necessary,” this is welcome news about alcohol consumption for a change, so we’re running with it.

The Health and Retirement Study looked at data from nearly 8,000 older adults, people born between 1931 and 1941 who were then interviewed twice a year from 1998 to 2014.

Study participants were divided into five categories based on their drinking habits according to Medical News Today, lifetime abstainers, current abstainers, heavy drinkers, moderate drinkers; and occasional drinkers.

Lifetime abstainers were explained as those who consumed less than 12 drinks in their lives. Current abstainers had consumed alcohol in the past, but not during the study period.

Heavy drinkers were categorized as females who consumed two drinks per day and males who consumed three drinks per day (oh-oh). This category also included male and female binge-drinkers who basically drank a shitload.

Moderate drinkers were described in the study as females who consumed one to two drinks, on one or more days a week, and males who consumed one to three drinks in that same period. And occasional drinkers where those who alcohol less than one day a week.

Again the study’s results showed that moderate and occasional drinkers had lower death rates than abstainers. (Yes!)

And that moderate and occasional women alcohol consumers were less likely to die prematurely than lifetime abstainers.