Co-workers enjoy a bear at a beer garden in Tokyo
© AFP/File Yoshikazu TsunoTOKYO (AFP) - Heavy drinkers and men who never have a drop both commit suicide at 2.3 times the rate of those who enjoy only a few drinks a month, said the study released by the health ministry.
Heavy drinkers were classified as men who knocked back the equivalent of six glasses of wine or three double-shots of whisky a day more than once a week.
However, the researchers cautioned that drinking more moderately would not necessarily decrease the risk of suicide as other factors such as stress were also important.
Also, some teetotalers are recovered alcoholics.
"Those who quit drinking may have done so for reasons such as severe illness or depression," Akechi Tatsuo, associate professor at Nagoya City University Medical School, wrote in the paper.
The study conducted by Tatsuo and other researchers looked at the behavior of 43,000 men between age 40 and 60 across Japan for a decade from 1990. A total of 168 of the men in the study committed suicide.
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