Older female total abstainers do not live as long nor do they enjoy as good a quality of life as do moderate drinkers. Such is the conclusion of an extensive study in Australia.

The study involved more than 12 000 women of between 70 and 75 years of age who were taken at random from the national health insurance list. They were initially questioned regarding their consumption of alcoholic drink. This was repeated after three and six years. The researchers were particularly interested in older women, because there were indications that older women are more sensitive than men to physical risks resulting from alcohol. Besides this, older persons are generally leaner than young persons; older livers are less up to the job of breaking down alcohol, making them the more easily damaged.

The physical and mental condition is assessed on the basis of a complex set of questions regarding illness, pain, fitness, mental health, social life and various other factors. All this data is reduced to quality-of-life score between 0 and 100.

The result showed that women who seldom if ever drank alcohol run a greater risk of dying within the next six months than did the moderate drinkers drinking 1 or 2 glasses a day 3 to 6 days a week. Those who did die had a significantly lower score for quality of life.

The researchers suggest that, besides the accepted protective effect of moderate alcohol consumption for the heart and blood vessels, the result may also be explained by the association of drinking with social and pleasurable circumstances and by the fact that alcohol stimulates the appetite.

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