Alcohol consumption increases the risk of 61 diseases, says study – 06/13/2023 – Health

New research by researchers at the University of Oxford and institutions in China found that alcohol consumption increased the risk of 61 diseases in Chinese men. Of this total, 28 were already considered by the World Health Organization (WHO) as associated with alcohol consumption, but the study draws attention to another 33 not yet considered in this way.

To reach this conclusion, the authors accessed the China Kadoorie Biobank, a bank that compiles biological and health information on Chinese people. In the research published in the journal Nature Medicine, data from about 512,000 people were considered: 210,000 were men and 302,000 were women.

Men were the ones who drank the most since the beginning of the research: 33% said they consumed alcoholic beverages at least once a week. Among women, the practice was only reported by 2% of them.

Participants were followed for about 12 years to see what happened to them. This type of study is called observational: the researchers segment the study participants by a habit –in this case, whether or not they consumed alcohol– and then build relationships with what happened.

Normally, these outcomes are only accessed years later and vary according to the purpose of the research: in this study, it was the development of diseases and cases of hospitalizations.

Regarding complications, the study noted that alcohol increased the risk of 61 diseases from a universe of 207 diseases. This number already includes 28 diseases considered by the WHO to be related to alcohol. Diabetes and tuberculosis are two examples. The other 33 complications not reported by the organization involve lung and stomach cancer, in addition to gastrointestinal problems, to name a few examples.

Some had more serious implications, but for others the risk was low. One example is cataracts: the chance of developing an eye problem was 8% higher among regular drinkers compared to occasional drinkers. For laryngeal cancer, the risk more than doubled.

Alcohol was also related to a greater risk of needing hospital help, especially among those who drank regularly. This group, compared to participants who consumed more sporadically, had a higher number of hospitalizations, with a special focus on cases of cancer.

However, the two conclusions only consider information from Chinese men, since the data are only from that country and the low consumption of alcoholic beverages among women made it impossible to observe the effects of the substance among them.

genetics

The observational methodology, adopted by this research, is not considered the best type to conclude a relation of the effect of a substance on the health of the participants. But, to complement the survey, the authors also paid attention to genetics.

According to them, there are two genetic instruments associated with the amount of alcohol in the body. In men, it was seen that the intake of the substance when related to genetic issues had an impact of increasing the risks of the diseases listed by the research.

For scientists, it is important that future studies also use data on the genetics of the participants in order to build the relationship between alcohol and the onset of diseases. Another point defended by them is the need for more global studies to observe whether the research conclusions are also seen by other investigations.

On the other hand, research with a regional focus is also necessary. The newly published survey was one of the only ones to consider data from Chinese people, as previous studies relied on a mainly Western population sample.