To all concerned:
I am writing a book about wine but not to 'tout' it as you call it for the
sake of it. In my wine and health section I want to place both points of
view side by side such as: a says this so b retorts on a. Let the reader
decide but with the most accurate facts for both sides. The last thing I
want as an author is to be blind sided.. So go ahead fellas I am taking all
this in.
Martin
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Room" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2001 8:34 AM
Subject: DUI and wine


> Gus and Ron --
>     The original posting is from someone writing a book specifically about
> wine, which I suspect wants to tout that wine is less likely to lead to
> drinking-driving (tell me if I'm wrong, Martin).
>     I agree with both of you entirely that who drinks the beverage, under
> what circumstances, is much more likely to affect the relation with
> drinking-driving than anything in the beverage itself.  (In my view,
> although there is slightly more evidence to argue over here, the same is
> true concerning heart-protective and heart-hurting effects of alcohol.
The
> best evidence at this point is that it is the alcohol rather than anything
> else in wine which provides any such effects.)
>       But producers and friends-of-the-beverage are always wanting to make
> this argument that theirs is the beverage of moderation.  In particular,
it
> was the curiosity of Loran Archer, when he was director of the alcoholism
> agency in California and was getting this argument from the brewers, that
> got me to look at this issue first.  (Robin Room, Beverage type and
drinking
> problems in a national sample of men, Drinking and Drug Practices Surveyor
> 12:29-30, 1976.)  My conclusion was that it depended on how you looked at
> the data: "the data do not seem to identify any one beverage as being the
> 'beverage of moderation', in the sense that users or heavier users of it
are
> less likely than users or heavier users of other beverages to have social
or
> health problems related to drinking".
>     The data I was using was a US national sample of 978 males 21-59,
> interviewed in 1969 -- whether or not they had a high tangible
consequences
> score, i.e., drinking-related problems in the last 3 years with spouse,
> friends, police, job, fiannces or health.  Among those who used each
> beverage type at least monthly, the % with high tangible consequences was
> nearly the same -- 23% for beer and for liquor, 20% for wine.  Among those
> using the beverage type in a "high maximum" pattern (i.e., including
> drinking 5+ drinks at a sitting at least once in a while), 36% of beer
> drinkers, 37% of wine drinkers, and 31% of spirits drinkers reported high
> tangible consequences.  But more of those with high tangible consequences
> were "high maximum" beer (76%) and spirits (60%) drinkers than were "high
> maximum" wine drinkers (20%).  Then again, these turned out to be almost
> exactly the proportions between the beverages in terms of how many drank
> that beverage in a "high maximum" pattern.
>     That is, in this sample, whether you ever drank 5+ drinks of a
> particular beverage was strongly predictive of whether you experienced
> drinking-related problems.  Fewer males under 60 drank wine in this
pattern
> (10%) than drank beer (41%) or liquor (37%) in this pattern.  But those
who
> did drink wine in this pattern were just as likely as the others to
> experience drinking-related problems. Robin
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Gus L. Seligmann" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: den 13 januari 2001 13:38
> Subject: Re: DUI and wine
>
>
>      Based on my observations of my misspent youth and other
> discontents the spin Roizen has put on beer consumption makes more
> sense than the original argument.  I am aware that one should never
> generalize from a single example but I did it anyway.
>
>             Gus Seligmann
>
> Subject:                Re: DUI and wine
> To:                     [log in to unmask]
>
> --------------- Text of forwarded message ---------------
> X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
> Approved-By:  Ron Roizen <[log in to unmask]>
> Date:         Fri, 12 Jan 2001 14:35:37 -0800
> Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
> Sender: Kettil Bruun Society <[log in to unmask]>
> From: Ron Roizen <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject:      Re: DUI and wine
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> Robin --
>
> 1.  It's interesting that this paper suggests both that beer "accounts
for"
> the bulk of alcohol-related problems and that hazardous beer drinkers "are
> more likely" to be youthful, single, males.  Might we switch those verb
> forms around, however, and say instead that hellraising young males
> "account for" most alcohol-related problems and that these gents are "more
> likely to be" beer drinkers?
>
> 2.  Abstract (paper too?) ignores the strong aggregate-level trend
> relationship between spirits consumption and cirrhosis mortality -- also
an
> "alcohol-related problem."  Beer's trend relationship with cirrhosis (as
> Terris noted so long ago) was nil in the U.S.
>
> Ron Roizen, ph.d.
> consultant sociologist
> http://www.roizen.com/ron/index.htm
>
> ----------
> From: Robin Room <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: DUI and wine
> Date: Friday, January 12, 2001 1:54 PM
>
> Martin -- the differences are much more likely to be due to who drinks the
> different beverages, under what circumstances, than to any metabolic
> differences between beverages.  Below is a reference from Medline which
> will get you started.  Robin
>
> J Stud Alcohol 1999 Nov; 60(6):732-9
> Beer drinking accounts for most of the hazardous alcohol consumption
> reported in the United States. Rogers JD, Greenfield TK Alcohol Research
> Group, Public Health Institute, Berkeley, California 94709, USA.
> OBJECTIVE: Patterns and correlates of hazardous drinking, defined as
> occasions in which five or more drinks were consumed in a day, were
> compared for wine, beer and distilled spirits. METHOD: From a probability
> sample of the U.S. adult household population, 2,817 respondents who had
> consumed at least one drink in the previous year were selected for
> analysis. RESULTS: The results show that, in the U.S., beer accounts for
> the bulk of alcohol consumed by the heaviest drinkers. Beer also accounts
> for a disproportionate share of hazardous drinking. Logistic regression
> analyses revealed that drinkers who consume beer in a hazardous fashion at
> least monthly are more likely to be young, male and unmarried, and less
> likely to be black than are other drinkers. Hazardous beer consumption is
> more predictive of alcohol-related problems than hazardous consumption of
> wine or spirits. CONCLUSIONS: Three potential explanations for the results
> are considered: advertising, beer-drinking subcultures and risk
> compensation. Additional research is urged in order to better specify the
> causal role of these and other factors in hazardous beer drinking. PMID:
> 10606483, UI: 20072499
>
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Mac Marshall
>   To: [log in to unmask]
>   Sent: den 12 januari 2001 21:20
>   Subject: DUI and wine
>
>
>   Dear Fellow KBS'ers,
>
>   I'm forwarding this from another list because I suspect our group is
more
> competent to answer these questions than is the Alcohol & Temperance
> History Group.
>
>   If you respond to Martin Platts, please copy it to me (or to the KBS
> list), since I'm interested in the responses.
>
>   Thanks,
>
>   Mac Marshall
>
>
>
>     Sender: Alcohol and Temperance History Group
>     From: Martin Platts
>     Subject: DUI and wine
>
>     To: [log in to unmask]
>
>     Has anyone on this list researched the breakdown of alcoholism and DUI
> in regards to wine consumption? I have contacte a number of organizations
> who generalize but never give actual specifics as to the statistical
> breakdown between wine, beer, and spirits. Does drinking wine with food
> travel through the blood stream at a slower rate than if one was consuming
> beer and spirits with the same food? What is the metabolic rate difference
> ratios in all three alcohol substances on say a 180 lb man and 135lb
woman?
> Is wine is bottom of the DUI list of alcohol beverages in such cases?
> Government agencies have been very reluctant to disseminate the
differences
> to me. This information I need for my forthcoming book "Visions on Wine."
> which hopes to cover both sides of the issue. Thank you. Martin Platts
> h.c.i.m.a.
>
>                                   -----
>