OBJECTIVES: To examine the association between alcohol drinking patterns and health-related quality of life (HRQL).
METHODS: Population-based cross-sectional study was conducted in 2008-2010 among 12,715 adult individuals in Spain. HRQL was assessed with the SF-12 questionnaire and alcohol intake with a diet history. The threshold between average moderate drinking and average heavy drinking was >/= 40 g/day of alcohol in men and >/= 24 g/day in women. Binge drinking was defined as the intake of >/= 80 g in men and >/= 60 g in women at any drinking session during the preceding 30 days. Analyses were performed with linear regression and adjusted for the main confounders.
RESULTS: Compared to non-drinkers, all types of average drinkers reported better scores on the SF-12 physical component: beta=1.42 (95% confidence interval 1.03 to 1.81) in moderate drinkers and beta=1.86 (1.07 to 2.64) in heavy drinkers. In contrast, average alcohol consumption was not associated with the mental component of the SF-12. The number of binge drinking episodes and most types of beverage preference showed no association with physical or mental HRQL.
CONCLUSIONS: Alcohol drinkers, including those with heavy drinking, reported better physical HRQL than non-drinkers.
BACKGROUND: The consumption of addictive substances is common in adolescence and raises concerns about future addiction. We investigated addictive substance consumption among young people to inform the design of drug intervention programmes.
METHODS: Participants were a population-based sample of 14- to 24-year-olds from Paredes, northern Portugal. A self-report questionnaire measured social and health variables, including tobacco, alcohol and illicit drug consumption. Results Data were analysed for 731 valid responses. Participants who had drunk alcohol did so first at 14.7 years (mean); 15.3% (95% confidence intervals [CI]: 12.9-18.1) drank alcohol regularly (more than 1/week, adjusted for age and sex) (95% CI: 12.9-18.1). Participants who had smoked tobacco did so first at 14.8 years (mean); 16.6% (95% CI: 14.0-19.5) were regular smokers. Illicit drug consumption was reported by 16.7% of participants (95% CI: 14.2-19.6) and 10.4% consumed drugs regularly.
CONCLUSION: We found a high prevalence of addictive substance consumption, particularly alcohol. As cultural attitudes likely influence alcohol consumption, a multigenerational approach is needed to address adolescent consumption. Participants' main sources of drug information were family members. Strategies are needed to promote drug literacy in parents and other relatives to change adolescents' culturally acquired habits of addictive substance consumption.
BACKGROUND: Alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking are associated with an increased risk of breast cancer (BC), but it is unclear whether these associations vary by a woman's familial BC risk.
METHODS: Using the Prospective Family Study Cohort, we evaluated associations between alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking, and BC risk. We used multivariable Cox proportional hazard models to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). We examined whether associations were modified by familial risk profile (FRP), defined as the 1-year incidence of BC predicted by Breast Ovarian Analysis of Disease Incidence and Carrier Estimation Algorithm (BOADICEA), a pedigree-based algorithm.
RESULTS: We observed 1009 incident BC cases in 17,435 women during a median follow-up of 10.4 years. We found no overall association of smoking or alcohol consumption with BC risk (current smokers compared with never smokers HR 1.02, 95% CI 0.85-1.23; consuming >/= 7 drinks/week compared with non-regular drinkers HR 1.10, 95% CI 0.92-1.32), but we did observe differences in associations based on FRP and by estrogen receptor (ER) status. Women with lower FRP had an increased risk of ER-positive BC associated with consuming >/= 7 drinks/week (compared to non-regular drinkers), whereas there was no association for women with higher FRP. For example, women at the 10th percentile of FRP (5-year BOADICEA = 0.15%) had an estimated HR of 1.46 (95% CI 1.07-1.99), whereas there was no association for women at the 90th percentile (5-year BOADICEA = 4.2%) (HR 1.07, 95% CI 0.80-1.44). While the associations with smoking were not modified by FRP, we observed a positive multiplicative interaction by FRP (pinteraction = 0.01) for smoking status in women who also consumed alcohol, but not in women who were non-regular drinkers.
CONCLUSIONS: Moderate alcohol intake was associated with increased BC risk, particularly for women with ER-positive BC, but only for those at lower predicted familial BC risk (5-year BOADICEA < 1.25). For women with a high FRP (5-year BOADICEA >/= 6.5%) who also consumed alcohol, being a current smoker was associated with increased BC risk.