Adherence
Poststratification of UK Biobank data to match general population demographics reveals that the protective association between heavy alcohol consumption and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality observed in unweighted analyses is spurious and disappears.
If you drink heavily (≥5 times/week), do not rely on alcohol for heart health. The perceived protective effect seen in older studies likely disappears when looking at the general population. Focus on proven lifestyle factors like physical activity and diet for cardiovascular protection.
Protective associations between alcohol use and CVD mortality observed in the unweighted UKB were substantially altered after poststratification, for example, from a hazard ratio (HR) of 0.63 (0.45–0.87) unweighted to 0.99 (0.65–1.50) poststratified for drinking ≥5 times/week versus never drinking.
Why this rating
Large sample size (n=302,009), long follow-up, and robust statistical correction (poststratification) against a representative reference (HSE), though observational design limits causal inference.
Source
Is Cohort Representativeness Passé? Poststratified Associations of Lifestyle Risk Factors with Mortality in the UK Biobank
Emmanuel Stamatakis et al. · Epidemiology · 2021
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