SynthesisEuropean journal of epidemiology2003
How stable is the risk curve between alcohol and all-cause mortality and what factors influence the shape? A precision-weighted hierarchical meta-analysis.
Synthesis in European journal of epidemiology, 2003. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 52 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
52 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- [Low-risk alcohol drinking limits based on associated mortality.]Revista espanola de salud publica · 2020Pooled it
- Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016.Lancet (London, England) · 2018Pooled it
- The relationship between mild alcohol consumption and mortality in Koreans: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC public health · 2015Pooled it
- The cardioprotective association of average alcohol consumption and ischaemic heart disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2012Pooled it
- Ischemic heart disease mortality and morbidity rates in former drinkers: a meta-analysis.American journal of epidemiology · 2011Pooled it
- Meta-analysis of the relationship between alcohol consumption and coronary heart disease and mortality in type 2 diabetic patients.Diabetologia · 2006Pooled it
- Prevalence and Clustering of Lifestyle Risk Factors for Chronic Diseases Among Middle-Aged Migrants in Japan.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Living longer and lifestyle: A report on the oldest of the old in the Adventist Health Study-2.JAR life · 2025Article
- Alcohol Consumption and a Decline in Glomerular Filtration Rate: The Japan Specific Health Checkups Study.Nutrients · 2023Article
- Article
- Trajectories of alcohol consumption in relation to all-cause mortality in patients with cardiovascular disease: a 35-year prospective cohort study.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2022Article
- Association of alcohol consumption with the incidence of proteinuria and chronic kidney disease: a retrospective cohort study in Japan.Nutrition journal · 2022Article
- Alcohol, Drinking Pattern, and Chronic Disease.Nutrients · 2022Review
- Patterns of Alcohol Consumption in the PURE Poland Cohort Study and Their Relationship with Health Problems.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Alcohol Consumption, Cardiovascular-Related Conditions, and ALDH2*2 Ethnic Group Prevalence in Asian Americans.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2021Article
- Individual-level Associations Between Indicators of Social Capital and Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test Scores in Communities With High Mortality in Korea.Journal of preventive medicine and public health = Yebang Uihakhoe chi · 2020Article
- Underappreciated Bias Created by Measurement Error in Risk Factor Assessment-A Case Study of No Safe Level of Alcohol Consumption.JAMA internal medicine · 2020Article
- Alcohol consumption and leukocyte telomere length.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Alcohol consumption and incidence of proteinuria: a retrospective cohort study.Clinical and experimental nephrology · 2018Article
- Social and Behavioural Determinants of the Difference in Survival among Older Adults in Japan and England.Gerontology · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo determine the influence of six determining variables on the shape of the risk curve between alcohol and all-cause mortality.
methodsDATA: Based on a systematic search with clear inclusion criteria, all articles on alcohol and all-cause mortality until 2000 were included. STATISTICAL
methodsPrecision-weighted pooling of relative risks (RRs); precision-weighted hierarchical analysis. VARIABLES: For pooling: RRs for different categories of average volume of drinking, lifetime abstainers and ex-drinkers. For hierarchical analysis: on first level: consumption in grams of pure alcohol per day; on second level: length of follow-up time in months; per capita consumption; average age, proportion of abstainers, average volume of drinking, and variability of average volume of drinking at baseline. OUTCOMES MEASURES: RR of former and current drinkers for all-cause mortality compared to abstainers.
resultsThe main hypotheses could be confirmed for males: Ex-drinkers had a higher mortality risk than lifetime abstainers; the higher and the more diverse the average volume of alcohol consumption, the wider the dip of the curve; the older the persons at baseline, the more pronounced the protective effect; and the longer the follow-up time, the less pronounced the protective effect. Except for average volume of drinking effects for females went in the same direction but with one exception did not reach significance.
conclusionsThere are systematic influences on the shape of the risk curve between alcohol and all-cause mortality. The overall beneficial effect of light to moderate drinking remained under all scenarios, indicating a high validity of the overall shape despite the heterogeneity between studies.
Indexed as
Identifiers
12952136What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.