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John N. Strand, MD
Anaheim, Calif

JAMA. 1995;273(18):1416.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—There are no data to indicate that physicians should recommend 30 mL (1 fl oz) of alcohol a day because no data were presented to prove that 30 mL of alcohol a day increases life span.¹ The comment in the accompanying Editorial² that 80 924 lives a year would be saved is based on the unsupported conjecture that the J-shaped alcohol mortality curve has a downward drop at 30 mL of alcohol a day. The article refers to two studies that show that acute alcohol intake reduces (not increases) t-PA activity. Physicians cannot recommend that the public take alcohol, which has such a narrow (or nonexistent) therapeutic range.

The "beneficial" effect of alcohol may be the protein malnutrition that is associated with increasing alcohol use. Table 1 of the article should have evaluated protein nutrition (perhaps by doing a serum albumin level correlation with t-PA) . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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