Moderate drinking does not bring benefits, reveals analysis – 04/12/2023 – Health

For decades, scientific studies have suggested that drinking in moderation was better for most people’s health than not drinking at all, and could even help them live longer.

A new analysis of more than 40 years of research concludes that many of these studies were flawed and that the opposite is true.

The review concluded that the risk of early death increases significantly for women from the moment they drink 25 grams of alcohol a day, which is less than two standard cocktails containing 44 ml of hard liquor, two 350 ml beers or two 150 ml wine glasses. Among men, the risk rises significantly from 45 grams of alcohol daily, or just over three drinks.

The review, which analyzed more than 100 studies involving nearly 5 million adults, was not intended to make recommendations for alcohol consumption, but to correct the methodological problems of many of the older observational studies. These studies concluded that moderate drinkers are less likely to die from any cause, including non-drinking causes.

Most of these studies were observational – that is, they could identify links or associations, but they could be misleading and did not prove cause and effect. Scientists said older studies failed to recognize that light and moderate drinkers have many other healthy habits and advantages, and that nondrinkers used as a comparison group in many cases included former drinkers who had given up alcohol after developing health problems.

“When you compare this unhealthy group to the group who continue to drink, current drinkers appear to be healthier and appear to have lower mortality,” said Tim Stockwell, a scientist at the Canadian Institute for Research on Substance Abuse and one of the authors of the study. new study, published last week in Jama Network Open.

After Stockwell and his colleagues made corrections to account for these errors and others, he said, “We’ve seen that the purported health benefits of alcohol consumption drop off dramatically and are no longer statistically significant.”

Stockwell said that comparisons between moderate drinkers and non-drinkers are flawed for several reasons. People who abstain completely from alcohol are in the minority, and those who do not for religious reasons are more likely to suffer from chronic health problems, have a disability, or have a low income.

Moderate drinkers tend to be moderate in everything. They tend to have higher incomes, are more likely to exercise and follow a healthy diet, and are less likely to be obese. They may even have better teeth, scientists say.

“They have a lot of factors that protect their health that are unrelated to alcohol,” Stockwell said.

The idea that moderate drinking can be beneficial dates back to 1924, when Johns Hopkins University biologist Raymond Pearl published a graph with a J-shaped curve. lower all-cause mortality rates.

The highest point of the J represented the known risks of heavy drinking, such as liver disease and car accidents. The hook on the left represented teetotallers.

In more recent decades, wine, especially red wine, has gained a reputation for possessing health benefits, after media articles highlighted its high concentration of a protective antioxidant called resveratrol, also found in blueberries and cranberries.

But the moderate drinking hypothesis has drawn increasing criticism over the years since it emerged that the alcohol industry helped fund the research. More recent studies have concluded that even moderate alcohol consumption, including red wine, can contribute to breast, esophageal and neck cancers, high blood pressure and a serious arrhythmia known as atrial fibrillation.

In January, Canada released new guidelines warning that no amount of alcohol consumption is healthy and encouraging people to cut back as much as possible. Issued by the Canadian Center on Substance Use and Addiction, the new guidelines differ sharply from 2011, which recommended that women have no more than 10 standard drinks a week and men no more than 15.

Now, the Canadian agency says that consuming as little as two standard drinks a week is linked to health risks. Seven or more drinks per week are at increased risk.

Dietary guidelines in effect today in the US are much less stringent, recommending that men have no more than two drinks a day and women no more than one.

But guidelines on alcohol consumption issued by various health organizations have been amended to highlight that people should not drink alcohol for the express purpose of improving their health.

That caveat was echoed by a scientist at the Spirits Council, although she objected to the new study’s findings.

Amanda Berger, vice president for science and health at the Distilled Beverage Council, said the new analysis still “suggests that those who drink in moderation live longer than those who don’t,” but added: “Nobody should drink alcohol for potential health benefits, and some people shouldn’t drink at all”.

However, the authors of the new study reiterate that it shows that those who drink moderately do not have a statistically significant advantage in terms of longevity when compared to lifelong abstainers.

Translated by Clara Allain