Biomedical subjects

Kaye Middleton Fillmore

Publications and source records attributed to Kaye Middleton Fillmore.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2003

Changes in drinking status, serious illness and mortality.

OBJECTIVE: We studied the relationship of drinking and abstaining with all-cause mortality in a two-measurement-point prospective study to assess the importance of drinking change versus stability among the healthy and seriously ill. METHOD: The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey I (NHANES I) and follow-up of men and women (age 22-49 and 50+) at first measurement (1971-74) who survived until second measurement (1982-84) were followed in death records for 10 years (1993). Cox proportional hazards models evaluated those with and without serious illness. RESULTS: We found no elevated mortality risk for consistent never drinkers, but consistent heavier drinkers were at higher all-cause risk among men. Groups of abstainers significantly differed for mortality risk, and illness was implicated in these differences. New drinkers who formerly abstained did not improve their chances for longevity. Heavier drinking men who decreased consumption increased their chances for survival. CONCLUSIONS: Abstinence per se is not a risk factor for all-cause mortality, but heavier drinking is a risk factor among men. Adoption of drinking among former abstainers does not improve chances for survival. Reduction in consumption among heavier drinking men improves chances for survival.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Stability of alcohol consumption over time: evidence from three longitudinal surveys from the United States.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the stability of individual monthly alcohol consumption volume in three studies from the United States: The first National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey with three measurements, The Framingham Offspring and Spouse Cohort with four measurements, and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth with six measurements. The results will aid in the interpretation of studies that assess consumption at one point only. METHOD: Five analyses measure (1) the amount of change between measurements, (2) the correlation between reported consumption, (3) patterns of later drinking by the baseline group, (4) mean consumption of abstainers when they drink and heavy drinkers when not drinking heavily and (5) the strength of past consumption in predicting present consumption. RESULTS: Correlations between measurements are high for adult samples 5 years apart or less but low for longer follow-ups and younger samples. Heavy drinkers are much less stable than abstainers or moderate drinkers. Abstainers at one time who drink at another drink much less than the mean. One time heavy drinkers are close to the consumption mean of the entire sample when not heavy but two or more time heavy drinkers drink more than the mean when not heavy. An autoregressive, rather than Markov, model of consumption change is supported. CONCLUSIONS: Aspects of both stability and change are found. Baseline measures of drinking groups are especially unreliable for younger samples, longer follow-ups and heavier drinkers. There appear to be important subgroups moving between abstention and light drinking and moderate and heavy drinking that can be identified only by multiple measurements or retrospective measures.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Wartime Paris, cirrhosis mortality, and the ceteris paribus assumption.

OBJECTIVE: This article critiques the ceteris paribus assumption, which tacitly sustains the epidemiologic literature's inference that the sharp decline in cirrhosis mortality observed in Paris during the Second World War derived from a sharp constriction in wine consumption. Paris's wartime circumstances deviate substantially from the "all else being equal" assumption, and at least three other hypotheses for the cirrhosis decline may be contemplated. METHOD: Historical and statistical review. RESULTS: Wartime Paris underwent tumultuous changes. Wine consumption did decline, but there were, as well, a myriad of other changes in diet and life experience, many involving new or heightened hardships, nutritional, experiential, institutional, health and mortality risks. Three competing hypotheses are presented: (1) A fraction of the candidates for cirrhosis mortality may have fallen to more sudden forms of death; (2) alcoholics, heavy drinkers and Paris's clochard subpopulation may have been differentially likely to become removed from the city's wartime population, whether by self-initiated departure, arrest and deportation, or death from other causes, even murder; and (3) there was mismeasurement in the cirrhosis mortality decline. CONCLUSIONS: The alcohol-cirrhosis connection provided the template for the alcohol research effort (now more than 20 years old) aimed at re-establishing scientific recognition of alcohol's direct alcohol-problems-generating associations and causal responsibilities. In a time given to reports of weaker associations of the alcohol-cirrhosis connection, the place and importance of the Paris curve in the wider literature, as regards that connection, remains. For this reason, the Paris findings should be subjected to as much research scrutiny as they undoubtedly deserve.

Alcohol Drinking↗