The idea that a glass of wine a day — or something similar — is good for your health has been embedded in society’s minds for years, but it is wrong and based on studies that use biased methods. In reality, there is no safe level of alcohol consumption.
This is the main conclusion of a meta-analysis that examines 107 previous studies and shows that drinking in moderation does not lengthen life. The new research is published in the journal “Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs” and is led by the University of Victoria (Canada), reports the EFE agency.
Over the years, work has suggested that moderate drinkers enjoy longer lives with lower risk of heart disease and other chronic illnesses compared to abstainers.
This has fueled a widespread belief that alcohol, in moderation, can be a “tonic” for health. However, “not all studies paint such a rosy picture,” the journal warns in a statement.
“Studies linking moderate alcohol consumption to health benefits suffer from fundamental design flaws,” says lead researcher Tim Stockwell.
The biggest problem is that they generally focused on older people and did not take into account lifetime alcohol consumption habits.
Moderate drinkers were therefore compared to groups of abstainers and occasional drinkers, which included some older adults who had stopped drinking or reduced their consumption because they had developed various health problems.
“This makes people who continue to drink appear much healthier by comparison,” Stockwell says, but “in this case, appearances can be deceiving.”
For the analysis, the team identified 107 published studies that followed people over time and looked at the relationship between drinking habits and longevity.
When they combined all the data, it appeared that light or moderate drinkers (that is, those who drank between one drink a week and two a day) had a 14% lower risk of dying during the study period compared with abstainers.
But digging deeper, things changed, the statement said. There were a handful of “higher quality” studies that included relatively young people at the start (under 55, on average) and that made sure that long-time and occasional drinkers were not considered “abstainers.”
In those studies, moderate alcohol consumption was not associated with a longer life.
In contrast, it was the “lower quality” studies (older participants, with no distinction between former drinkers and lifelong abstainers) that did link moderate alcohol consumption with greater longevity.
Meta-analysis More details
Scientists examined 107 previous studies and found that drinking alcohol, even in moderation, does not lengthen life.
Health hazards
The idea that moderate alcohol consumption leads to a longer, healthier life dates back decades, but in reality, drinking alcohol does not lengthen people’s lives and in fact carries potential health dangers, such as an increased risk of certain types of cancer.
There is no safe level
For this reason, the authors of the study point out, no major health organization has ever established a level of alcohol consumption that is free of risks.
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2024-09-20 18:17:10
