You know we don’t mind throwing a little propaganda about our favorite hobby your way, but now we found a study that seems too good to be true. The main conslusion: regular drinkers are less likely to die prematurely than people who choose abstinence. That’s right, people who don’t drink run a higher risk to die young. The research was led by psychologist Charles Holahan of the University of Texas.

In his research Holahan checked out people between the ages of 55 and 65 for a period of 20 years. The mortality rates were highest among people who never drank. Heavy drinkers scored lower and the lowest mortality rate was for the moderate drinkers. Well we’re not really surprised about that last fact. In the past was proven that a few glasses of red wine a week can keep you both mentally and physically in shape. But that even heavy drinkers have a better chance of growing old than the abstinent is new. A conclusion we welcome with open arms of course.

So let’s have a look at the numbers. The research was performed on a group of 1.824 study participants. 41% of the moderate drinkers died prematurely. Heavy drinkers died significantly more (60%), but still way less than the nondrinkers with 69%. Even with all the drinking related diseases like several forms of cancer most heavy boozers still outlived the abstinent people.

When trying to come up with a possible explanation for this unexpected result the researchers named the social aspect of alcohol. Since social behaviour is essential for staying healthy both mental and physical. Well, you can believe us or not. Here’s the full research if you are interested. We just want to perform a cheers: to outliving the abstinent, salud!

Micky Bumbar

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