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Alcohol consumption is associated with many illnesses but also with a reduction in cardiovascular risk. The relation between overall mortality and alcohol dose forms a U-shaped curve: Mortality is lowest with moderate alcohol consumption and higher with high consumption and with abstinence. British investigators hypothesized that the U-shaped curve might not apply equally to all age groups. They tested that hypothesis by modeling data from 3 systematic reviews of alcohol and mortality and applying these data to the British population, for whom levels of alcohol consumption had been determined during a 1997 survey.
For women, mortality increased with any alcohol consumption until age 44; then, the U-shaped curve appeared. For men, the U-shape…