Nondrinkers More at Risk Than Light Drinkers--Unless They Have a Good Reason

Drink or don't drink? That's a very good question. Although previous research has shown that people who don't drink at all have a higher mortality risk than light drinkers, scientists have uncovered further evidence that may give more depth to the matter. It turns out that the reasons nondrinkers have for abstaining affects their individual mortality risk, in some cases lowering it to be on par with light drinkers'.

People who drink have a higher likelihood of dying as they consume more and more alcohol. Yet a person's mortality risk increases at the other end of the spectrum, as well; nondrinkers face a higher risk, though it's still far less than for heavy drinkers. It's possible that the increased mortality among nondrinkers could be due to the fact that light alcohol consumption might actually protect people from disease and reduce their stress levels. Intrigued by this phenomenon, researchers decided to investigate a bit further.

"Among nondrinkers, people have all sorts of background reasons for why they don't drink," said Richard Rogers, one of the researchers, in a news release. "We wanted to tease that out because it's not really informative to just assume that nondrinkers are a unified group."

In order to examine the mortality differences a bit further, the scientists used data collected in1988 by the National Health Interview Survey about the drinking habits of more than 41,000 people. In this survey, nondrinkers were asked to provide their reasons for not drinking, which ranged from "don't socialize very much" to "am an alcoholic" to "religious or moral reasons."

After examining the data, the researchers divided nondrinkers into three main groups: abstainers, infrequent drinkers and former drinkers. These groups were then divided into subgroups using a statistical technique that grouped people together that gave similar reasons for not drinking. Then, the scientists calculated the mortality risk for each subgroup compared with the risk for light drinkers.

It turns out that some reasons reduce risk a bit more than others. Abstainers that chose not to drink for religious or moral motivations, responsibilities to their family, being brought up not to drink or not liking the taste had similar mortality risks to light drinkers.

"So this idea that nondrinkers always have higher mortality than light drinkers isn't true," said Rogers. "You can find some groups of nondrinkers who have similar mortality risks to the light drinkers."

The findings reveal that not drinking does not mean that you will have a higher risk of mortality. In fact, it suggests that the idea that drinking could be somewhat beneficial is overstated. There could be other factors that lower mortality instead.