My understanding is that the decent longitudinal studies fail to take account of the fact that a fair proportion of people who don’t drink AT ALL are ex-alcoholics. But I haven’t seen these studies in particular.
To be honest, in the UK, not drinking at all is a very strong signal for either being a Muslim or having some reasonably serious personal whackiness and non-conformism. Both of those seem likely to me to be at least as likely to explain health effects as the booze itself.
My understanding is that the decent longitudinal studies fail to take account of the fact that a fair proportion of people who don’t drink AT ALL are ex-alcoholics. But I haven’t seen these studies in particular.
To be honest, in the UK, not drinking at all is a very strong signal for either being a Muslim or having some reasonably serious personal whackiness and non-conformism. Both of those seem likely to me to be at least as likely to explain health effects as the booze itself.