title: Handedness and drinking behaviour.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  A number of papers have investigated whether there is an association between handedness and alcohol consumption hypothesizing that alcoholism may be a consequence of atypical cerebral lateralization or a response to the stress involved in being a minority in a right-handed world. Research to date has mostly used small clinical samples, some without a comparison group. This paper exams this issue using a large population-based random sample.
  
  
  METHODS
  A large multi-country data set of nationally representative samples of the non-institutional population aged 50 years and older from 12 European countries was used (N= 27,428). methods: Logistic regression was used to model the frequency with which individuals self-report the frequency of alcohol consumption. A series of models with differing numbers of potential confounders are estimated. The predictors of frequent and infrequent drinking are investigated separately.
  
  
  RESULTS
  After controlling for a number of confounders it is shown that left-handers do drink more often. However, this is due to them being less likely to drink rarely (less than once a month) or not at all.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The evidence suggests that while there is an association between left-handedness and frequency of alcohol consumption there is no reason to believe that it is associated with excessive alcohol consumption or risky drinking.
authors.affiliation: School of Economics and Geary Institute, University College Dublin 4, Ireland. kevin.denny@ucd.ie
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Denny
mesh_terms: D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005060:Europe / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D057566:Self Report; D006113:United Kingdom