MODERATE ALCOHOL USE--THE HETEROGENEITY OF ABSTENTION

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APPLICANT'S ABSTRACT: The purposes of the proposed project are to determine if abstainers have a higher prevalence of physical and mental illness compared to light-to-moderate alcohol drinkers and, amongst abstainers, determine if differences exist in regard to prevalence of physical and mental illness. Socio-demographic measures, lifestyle and ethnic/cultural differences will also be examined for abstainers and light-to-moderate alcohol consumers. To this end, a nationally representative data set, the National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey will be used to: (1) measure alcohol use in terms of frequency quantity and binge drinking, (2) distinguish amongst those abstaining based on differences in health, smoking, ethnicity and socio- demographic measures, (3) determine amongst those abstaining if there are differences in risk of heart disease by type of abstainer; sick never drinkers, healthy never drinkers, former light, moderate, heavy drinkers, abusing drinkers, (4) determine amongst those abstaining if there are differences in risk of depression by type of abstainer, (5) determine if abstainers have higher levels of depression/mood problems than those not abstaining when controlling for socio-demographic variables, ethnicity and physical illness, and (6) determine if abstainers have higher levels of heart disease, compared to those not abstaining. Information from these activities will serve two related purposes: First, to increase our understanding of the correlates of abstention, particularly differences across age, gender and ethnicity. Second, to increase our ability to classify abstainers into etiologically meaningful categories relevant to moderate alcohol and health. Often moderate drinkers, who may also be moderate in many different measures of lifestyle and health status, are typically compared to abstainers who may have combinations of measures that are considerably less moderate, or at the least, very different. Thus, instead of measuring differences in health outcomes based on alcohol consumption between moderate and abstention categories, researchers frequently are comparing, for example, sick former heavy drinkers with relatively healthy moderate drinkers. Similarly, sick never drinkers might be compared to moderate alcohol drinkers. In either case, the possible beneficial effect of moderate alcohol use is obscured by other factors that may be influencing health outcomes independently from moderate alcohol use or abstention. Results from this project will allow a more insightful examination of the role of moderate alcohol in protecting against certain chronic diseases.