Of the 786 787 participants with sufficient information for inclusion in this consortium, 186 875 (19%) reported not drinking at baseline, leaving 599 912 current drinkers without a history of cardiovascular disease at baseline who were eligible for the prespecified principal analysis. The current drinkers were derived from ERFC (247 504 participants), EPIC-CVD (26 036), and the UK Biobank (326 372; table 1). Baseline year of recruitment ranged from 1964 to 2010. The mean age of the participants was 57 years (SD 9). 265 910 (44%) of 599 912 participants were women, and 128 085 (21%) were current smokers (appendix p 12). About 50% reported drinking more than 100 g of alcohol per week, and 8·4% drank more than 350 g per week (table 1). During 5·4 million person-years (median 7·5 years of follow-up [5th–95th percentiles 5·0–18·4]), there were 40 310 deaths from all causes, (including 11 762 vascular and 15 150 neoplastic deaths), and 39 018 first incident cardiovascular disease outcomes, including 12 090 stroke events, 14 539 myocardial infarction events, 7990 coronary disease events excluding myocardial infarction, 2711
