Does wine have health benefits or not when consumed in moderation? A team of researchers wanted to take an interest in this myth by analyzing the data of a hundred studies involving nearly 5 million people. As a result, no offense to lovers of fine wines, alcohol does not protect against cardiovascular disease, nor does it allow you to live longer.
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Alcohol consumption is the subject of a multitude of studies that have come to contradict each other over the decades. It must be said that certain alcoholic beverages, such as wine in France, or beer in Ireland, are considered real institutions, to the point that the slightest medicinal virtue associated with this or that elixir is quickly extolled. A team of Canadian researchers from the University of Victoria took a close look at the subject via a meta-analysis sifting through 107 studies published between January 1980 and July 2021 focusing on alcohol consumption and mortality risk. , engaging some 4.8 million participants.
No benefits associated with alcohol
Published in the journal , their work reveals that alcohol consumption, even in small or moderate quantities, is not associated with a lower risk of mortality, nor with the prevention of cardiovascular disease. In detail, the researchers explain that people who have consumed less than 25 grams of ethanol a day – which corresponds to approximately two glasses of wine or beer – are not more likely to live longer than those who do not. never drink alcohol. Wine would not protect the hearts of wine lovers either, as previous research has claimed, say the scientists.
Asked by , Tim Stockwell, professor of psychology at the University of Victoria and co-author of the study, says: “The idea that alcohol is good for your health is so ingrained in many cultures”. He and his colleagues also explain why previous research has linked moderate alcohol consumption to health benefits in older adults, implicating external factors that had previously been overlooked.
“People who are still healthy in their 70s or 80s can continue to drink. Those who become frail, who take medication or who have less social contact tend to stop or reduce their alcohol consumption. In other words, people who drink alcohol at a certain age may actually turn out to be healthier than those who don’t drink at all, but simply because their state of health allows them to – and not the other way around. .
Alcohol, never safe
Not only did the researchers find no link between moderate alcohol consumption and a significant drop in the risk of premature death, but they also observed a higher risk of death in people who drank at least three glasses of alcohol per day. , compared to those who drank little or nothing. Last but not least, the risk of death from all causes was significantly higher in women who drank 25 grams of ethanol per day, compared to an equivalent consumption in men.
In France, almost a quarter of the population aged between 18 and 75 (23.7%) did not meet the alcohol consumption guidelines in 2020, the year of the main confinements linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. 19, according to the barometer of . French health authorities recommend consuming “a maximum of two glasses a day, and not every day”. It is a question of not consuming more than two glasses of alcohol per day, of not consuming any alcohol several days per week, and of not exceeding more than ten glasses per week. This does not prevent the device to specify that “all alcohol consumption entails risks to health and [que] these risks increase with the amount of alcohol consumed”.
In January 2023, (WHO) has for its part made it known that “the consumption of alcohol is never without danger for health, whatever the quantity consumed”. The world health authority has also reported that “half of alcohol-attributable cancers in the WHO European region are caused by ‘minimal’ or ‘moderate’ alcohol consumption (less than 1.5 liter of wine, or less than 3.5 liters of beer, or less than 450 milliliters of spirits per week)”. She points out that this so-called ‘moderate’ consumption is the cause of the majority of alcohol-related breast cancers in women. A finding confirmed today by this new study involving nearly 5 million people.