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"
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.
The average age of death being 75 not only excludes heavy drinkers who didn't make it, but also excludes all the healthy people who made it well into their 80s and 90s.
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.
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.
So, I read this as "If you're a heavy drinker, it's better than being moderate or ever stopping"
Statistics are fun.