I don’t know if this is a bogus study or not because it sounds almost too good to be true- heavy drinkers outlive those who don’t drink anything at all. Research has already demonstrated that those who drink moderate amounts of alcohol are healthier and live longer than those who refuse to drink, but is it really true that the those who consume copious amounts of alcohol (to borrow my favorite phrase from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) and list Beer Pong as one of their daily activities live longer than the teetotalers?
Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin recently performed a study which followed almost 2,000 50- and 60-year-olds over a twenty-year period and found that a much higher percentage of non-drinkers died earlier than their heavy-drinking counterparts. As this article suggests, the results are pretty remarkable and seem a more than a little unlikely.
However, I don’t think the results from the study mean that drinkers should continue to drink at college-rates over the course of their lives- the negative health issues associated with continual pounding of alcohol over time definitely have to be carefully considered and factored into the equation of how much to drink.
Some say that the positives that drinking offers including socialization and the ability to make new friends, pick up chicks and dudes, and delight people at parties may help you extend your social circle, which also helps ward off depression. Time Magazine speculates that the social benefits that drinking offers are at least partially responsible for the extended longevity of heavy drinkers.
I’m also not exactly sure how the study defines a heavy drinker- that could really be a wide range. To some, a heavy drinker is someone who drinks a beer or two every evening, but to others a heavy drinker is defined by someone who can drink a case of beer in one setting and still come back for more. It’s much easier to define someone as a non-drinker than to specify whether or not they are a heavy drinker.
As Time also observes, a flaw in the study is that the study included a disproportionate amount of males, so it’s difficult to say whether the results are indicative of how long female-drinkers live compared to their beer-swilling husbands- I guess we’ll have to wait for the next study to find that out.