Cheers! Heavy Drinkers Outlive Non-Drinkers

Drink up if you want to live a few years longer. That’s the highly unusual conclusion of a new study which suggests that non-drinkers die sooner than heavy drinkers. Moderate drinkers fair the best. The paper, which appears in “Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research,” took a look at 1,824 participants over 20 years; 63% of them were men. Scientists at the University of Texas at Austin filtered out socioeconomic status, level of physical activity, number of close friends, quality of social support and still found that nondrinkers don’t live as long as their drinking compatriots. Over the 20-year period, 69% of the nondrinkers died, 60% of the heavy drinkers died. Only 41% of the moderate drinkers died. Moderate drinking is defined as one to three drinks per day.