How full is your glass? Portion sizes of wine, fortified wine and straight spirits at home in the Netherlands.

OBJECTIVE: Alcohol consumption may be wrongly estimated because of inaccurate information on actual portion sizes. We compared portion sizes of wine, fortified wine and straight spirits poured at home with the Dutch standard drink sizes. DESIGN: Participants measured portion sizes of wine, fortified wine and straight spirits at home up to a maximum of three times and reported these via an online survey. Average portion sizes (in millilitres) were compared with the Dutch standard drink sizes. Portion sizes were compared between subgroups of gender, age, BMI and level of education, and for different glass types. SETTING: Wageningen and surroundings, the Netherlands.ParticipantsAdults (N 201) living in the Netherlands and consuming wine and/or straight spirits at home at least once per week. RESULTS: Participants poured on average 129·4 ml white wine and 131·7 ml red wine, which is significantly more than the standard of 100 ml. For fortified wine, the average poured amount was 94·0 ml, significantly more than the standard of 50 ml; also for straight spirits the poured amount was significantly more than the standard (47·0 v. 35 ml). CONCLUSIONS: Participants' portion sizes of wine, fortified wine and straight spirits poured at home were on average larger than the Dutch standard drink sizes. This suggests that at-home alcohol consumption in the Netherlands is underestimated.

Exploring the Influence of Alcohol Industry Funding in Observational Studies on Moderate Alcohol Consumption and Health.

Funding of research by industry in general can lead to sponsorship bias. The aim of the current study was to conduct an initial exploration of the impact of sponsorship bias in observational alcohol research by focusing on a broad spectrum of health outcomes. The purpose was to determine whether the outcome depended on funding source. We focused on moderate alcohol consumption and used meta-analyses that are the basis of several international alcohol guidelines. These meta-analyses included observational studies that investigated the association of alcohol consumption with 14 different health outcomes, including all-cause mortality, several cardiovascular diseases and cancers, dementia, and type 2 diabetes. Subgroup analyses and metaregressions were conducted to investigate the association between moderate alcohol consumption and the risk of different health outcomes, comparing findings of studies funded by the alcohol industry, ones not funded by the alcohol industry, and studies with an unknown funding source. A total of 386 observational studies were included. Twenty-one studies (5.4%) were funded by the alcohol industry, 309 studies (80.1%) were not funded by the alcohol industry, and for the remaining 56 studies (14.5%) the funding source was unknown. Subgroup analyses and metaregressions did not show an effect of funding source on the association between moderate alcohol intake and different health outcomes. In conclusion, only a small proportion of observational studies in meta-analyses, referred to by several international alcohol guidelines, are funded by the alcohol industry. Based on this selection of observational studies the association between moderate alcohol consumption and different health outcomes does not seem to be related to funding source.