Correlation is not causation but for anyone looking for an excuse, this study should be enough to get them guzzling wine if not beer. It says drinking wine in moderation adds five years to your life while beer adds 2.5. People who don’t drink die young.
Have not read the study but it reminds me of the fact that married men make more than men who never marry at all. Does marriage make men more productive? Does alcohol prolong life or is there another explanation?
The marriage counter-theory is easy: men who never marry on average do not have the social skills to do better at work. On the alcohol front, people who drink wine are on average wealthier than ones who drink beer. The rich have a healthier lifestyle, better medical care, cushier jobs etc. The study took place in Holland. The beer is great, much of it brought over from Belgium. Someone who does not drink this quality of beer and avoids alcohol all together has to be really, really antisocial and weird. Sad and lonely, they die young. Weak story at the end but best I can do while teaching.
Cheap Talk 
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May 6, 2009 at 9:19 am
Tomek
One more self-selection story: in Holland there are many (religious) minorities that don’t drink alcohol and they are on average less wealthy.
This doesn’t explain the Beer/Wine difference though.
May 6, 2009 at 5:14 pm
sandeep
Thanks, Tomek.
May 6, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Jay
Billy Joel had this figured out more than 30 years ago…
May 6, 2009 at 5:15 pm
sandeep
I’m too cool to pick up on Billy Joel references 🙂
May 7, 2009 at 6:45 pm
blink
Some people stop drinking for health reasons once they become sick. If this study counts them as “non-drinkers”, there is a serious selection problem.
September 2, 2009 at 9:32 pm
thenonconformer
Two days after the Bloor Street collision that left a bike messenger dead, the girlfriend of Darcy Allan Sheppard is questioning why police allowed him to bicycle home in the first place. But after dozing intermittently, Mr. Sheppard insisted on bicycling back to his own apartment. Leaving Ms. Bailey’s, he was immediately apprehended by Toronto police, who were responding to a call of “unknown trouble” at the building. Mr. Sheppard was placed into the back of the police cruiser. For Ms. Bailey, this is where she last saw her boyfriend alive. It is also where she wishes he could have stayed, and that the police could have driven him all the way home in one piece. “I asked for the police to give him a ride home,” said Ms. Bailey, 34, adding that her friends also made similar requests. “They said ‘No, he’s going to [take] himself home.” Shortly afterward, Mr. Sheppard was killed in a collision with a black Saab convertible on Bloor Street West, just east of Avenue Road. Former attorney-general Michael Bryant has been charged in connection with the death. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/girlfriend-of-dead-cyclist-questions-police-refusal-to-drive-him-home/article1273891/
The police themselves are not off the hook in these matters…