Wine, beer, and mortality in middle-aged men from eastern France.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate prospectively the health risk of wine and beer drinking in middle-aged men in the area of Nancy, France.


METHODS
Prospective cohort study.


METHODS
A total of 36 250 healthy men who underwent comprehensive health appraisals in a center of preventive medicine between January 1, 1978, and December 31, 1983.


METHODS
Education, professional and leisure activities, and smoking and drinking habits were evaluated using a questionnaire. Blood pressure and mean corpuscular volume and gamma-glutamyltransferase, glucose, and serum cholesterol levels were routinely measured, and electrocardiography was routinely performed. We recorded mortality from all causes and specific causes during a 12- to 18-year follow-up across categories of baseline alcohol consumption.


RESULTS
Of the subjects, 28% drank beer, 61% drank wine but no beer, and 11% were abstainers; there was not much difference between social classes. During the follow-up, 3617 subjects died. The relative risk of death was estimated by the Cox proportional hazards model using nondrinkers as the reference and adjusting for 4 or 5 covariables. Moderate intake of both wine and beer was associated with lower relative risk for cardiovascular diseases; the risk was more significant with the intake of wine. For all-cause mortality, only daily wine intake (22-32 g of alcohol) was associated with a lower risk (0.67; 95% confidence interval, 0.58-0.77; P<.001) due to a lower incidence of cardiovascular diseases, cancers, violent deaths, and other causes.


CONCLUSIONS
In eastern France, moderately drinking only wine was associated with a lower all-cause mortality, although drinking both wine and beer reduced the risk of cardiovascular death.
Renaud
S C
SC
Unit 330, Institut National pour la Santé et la Recherche Médicale, Bordeaux, France.
Guéguen
R
R
Siest
G
G
Salamon
R
R
D001515:Beer / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000401:mortality; D002423:Cause of Death; D005602:France / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D007899:Leisure Activities; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality; D012306:Risk; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014920:Wine / Q000706:statistics & numerical data