[bbarn]

Of those who never drank, 40% had vascular brain lesions. Of the moderate drinkers, 45% had vascular brain lesions. Of the heavy drinkers, 44% had vascular brain lesions. Of the former heavy drinkers, 50% had vascular brain lesions.

So, I read this as "If you're a heavy drinker, it's better than being moderate or ever stopping"

Statistics are fun.

[muglug]

On paper the ones who died as heavy drinkers fare slightly better brain-wise, but they die earlier (according to the study). Quitting heavy drinking may mean you live longer, but with an impaired brain.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

The old adage always rings true. There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. The devil is always in the details

[smt88]

"Former heavy drinkers" is going to include more people who already started having health issues than the group of current heavy drinkers

[kstrauser]

It also excludes people who died of it. No telling what their rate might be.

[profsummergig]

Thank you for digging into the details and displaying their clear ridiculousness. As someone who finished a 750ml bottle (17 drinks) over 4 days this week, the headline had me freaking out. Whew.

[beAbU]

Wait. A bottle of wine is 17 drinks?!

Or did you finish a bottle of hard liquor in four days?

[remram]

Those are very small variations. I would look for confounding factors, e.g. income levels, mental health, etc that could easily explain a few percent difference.

Looking at the full paper, specific factors were accounted for but the list seems kind of short for such a small statistical result. The paper acknowledge that racial minorities have a higher incidence but the data doesn't seem to contain income information... yeah.

Honestly I'm mostly surprised it came out so small.