My friend and colleague Felix Åhrberg tipped me off about this scientific paper. It’s titled Running from Death: Can Fitness Outpace Alcohol’s Harm? Changes in Alcohol Intake, Fitness and All-Cause Mortality in the HUNT Study, Norway. The reference is here.
The conclusions are incredibly reassuring for the fitter among us, but not so much for the fatties. You can read the paper for yourself, but I’ll just headline the key findings.
The assertion is that there is no safe level of drinking. That is, the more you drink, the higher the risk of dying earlier than someone who doesn’t drink. But this message has been questioned.
This study was prompted by evidence suggesting that regular physical activity modifies the association between alcohol intake and all-cause mortality. But no one has examined whether a change in cardiorespiratory fitness can modify the association between a change in alcohol intake and mortality.
In the words of the authors of this paper:
Our study suggests that maintaining cardiorespiratory fitness above the lowest 20% for one’s age and sex lowers the mortality risk associated with alcohol intake, and a 10-year change in fitness is a better predictor of mortality than contemporary changes in alcohol intake.
This is a very low bar indeed in terms of fitness. Imagine the potential benefits of being even fitter than this. Maybe we shouldn’t be so worried about drinking wine with meals. As long as we stay fit and healthy, whatever age we are.
I've always instinctively thought that this was true. I'm 68, stay pretty fit (25km per week, 4 X gym, 15000 steps average, plus cricket). I drink an inadvisable quantity of wine, and my numbers are very good in terms of blood pressure, cholesterol,heart rate, VO2 max. Of course it may all fall apart soon but so far so good.
Jamie, I always enjoy reading your work, and this study caught my attention because I read it a little differently as a physician. I find the results reassuring, though more as an argument for staying fit than as a free pass for drinking. The study suggests that fitness may attenuate the association between alcohol intake and all-cause mortality; it does not show that fitness neutralizes every alcohol-related harm. I’d be interested to see whether the same pattern holds for cancer, liver disease, atrial fibrillation, or disability-free survival. Mortality is only one endpoint. Being alive is not necessarily the same as remaining healthy.