Journals » The Lancet » [Correspondence] Alcohol and the global burden of disease
Posted date: 2019-06-15 00:00:00
Tags: General
The most reliable way to reach a definitive conclusion is to analyse the association of alcohol with all-cause mortality. We were therefore surprised that the investigators did not consider total mortality as an outcome. They tried, instead, to solve the issue by combining 23 relative-risk curves for as many outcomes in a unique dose-response curve. The curves were combined with weights based on the respective global disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs). Their conclusion was that the level of consumption that minimises health loss is zero. However, the way the curves were combined was not validated, contains a dose of arbitrariness (the authors do not explain why heart failure was not included and why DALYs were used as the weighting variable), and did not take into account the variability in precision because each curve is derived from a different sample size.
AFDC reports a grant from The European Foundation for Alcohol Research, outside the submitted work. SC reports a grant from The European Foundation for Alcohol Research and personal fees from Heineken for educational presentations, including service on speakers' bureaus, outside the submitted work. GdG reports personal fees from Assobirra, and non-financial support from Accademia Italiana della Vite e del Vino and from International Scientific Forum on Alcohol Research, outside the submitted work.
Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016.
Lancet. 392: 1015-1035No level of alcohol consumption improves health.
Lancet. 392: 987-988© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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