When I drink alcohol alcohol Moderate alcohol consumption can be beneficial for your health. Some doctors recommend having an occasional glass of wine based on research showing that moderate alcohol consumption is beneficial for your health. But the conclusions we collectively draw from a series of studies may be incorrect about an important issue uncovered in new research.
Canadian scientists looked at 107 studies on drinking habits and lifespan and found a major flaw. These studies often compare two groups of people: drinkers and those who abstain or only drink very little when it comes to alcohol consumption. But the problem with the latter group is that it can include former heavy drinkers who stopped drinking along the way for a variety of reasons, including health problems.
As a result, groups of abstainers and moderate drinkers may have health problems directly related to their past drinking that could affect their lifespan, yet they would be classified as non-drinkers in these studies.
In theory, non-drinkers or people who only drink a little alcohol should be healthier than those who drink alcohol, but a lot of older studies show that this isn’t the case.
The group of people who drink little or no alcohol includes people who used to drink alcohol, and as a result, the average health of this group is adversely affected, while moderate alcohol consumption appears to be beneficial for health.
“It’s a propaganda success for the alcohol industry to suggest that moderate consumption of their product will help people live longer,” says Dr Tim Stockwell. Said Parents“This belief influences national drinking guidelines and estimates of the global burden of alcohol-related disease, and undermines effective alcohol and public health policymaking.”
Stockwell and his team initially reviewed the studies without disputing the quality of the non-drinking group. The overall data showed that light-to-moderate drinkers had a 14% lower risk of death compared with abstainers. Light-to-moderate drinkers consumed between one drink per week and two drinks per day.
Researchers then began to compare the quality of the two groups in these studies. The best quality studies included younger people. They also made sure that former or occasional drinkers were not considered non-drinkers. These studies came to very different conclusions: they found no evidence that light to moderate drinkers live longer than non-drinkers.
Health benefits from moderate drinking were found only in studies that did not separately examine former drinkers and abstainers.
Stockwell further explained that people who had stopped drinking for health reasons and were placed in abstinent groups in biased studies appeared to be healthier than people who were healthy enough to continue drinking.
Parents He points out that in the UK, adults are told to drink no more than 14 units a week to reduce their risk – half a pint is one unit of beer and 1.5 units of wine is 125ml (4.40 fl oz).
In the US, a quick search will lead you to this (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)). page Moderate drinking is considered to be no more than two drinks per day for men and no more than one drink per day for women.
But the CDC points out that there are no health benefits to drinking any amount of alcohol, citing recent studies that show that even moderate drinking increases the overall risk of death and chronic diseases, including cancer and heart disease, compared with abstainers.
Next time your doctor tells you that having a glass of wine is good for you, point them to the full study. National Library of Medicine.
