Moderate drinking increases life expectancy!!

Moderate Drinkers May Live Longer Than Teetotalers.
Bloomberg News (8/31, Olmos) reports that "a study of 1,824 adults ages 55 to 65 found that moderate and heavy drinkers were less likely to die than abstainers over a 20-year span," according to the study in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. Overall, "older adults who didn't drink at all had a 49 percent greater risk of dying during the 20 years of the study than those who drank moderately, the researchers found." Notably, "heavy drinkers had a 42 percent increased risk of dying than moderate drinkers." The research was funded by National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the US Department of Veterans Affairs.
Time (8/30, Cloud) reported that "one of the most contentious issues in the vast literature about alcohol consumption has been the consistent finding that those who don't drink actually tend to die sooner than those who do." The current study "suggests that -- for reasons that aren't entirely clear -- abstaining from alcohol does actually tend to increase one's risk of dying even when you exclude former drinkers." According to Time, the "most shocking part" of the study is that "abstainers' mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers." The UK's Daily Mail (8/31) also covers the story.