Moderate Drinking Has No Health Benefits, Analysis of Decades of Research Finds

NYT HEALTH: Moderate Drinking Has No Health Benefits, Analysis of Decades of Research Finds
By Roni Caryn Rabin
Section: Health
Source: New York Times
Published Date: April 4, 2023 at 03:00AM

The review found that the methodology of many previous studies was flawed and that risk of myriad health problems increased significantly after less than two drinks a day for women and after three for men.

For decades, scientific studies suggested moderate drinking 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 has concluded that many of those studies were flawed and that the opposite is true.

The review found that the risks of dying prematurely increase significantly for women once they drink 25 grams of alcohol a day, which is less than two standard cocktails containing 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits, two 12-ounce beers or two 5-ounce glasses of wine. The risks to men increase significantly at 45 grams of alcohol a day, or just over three drinks.

The new report, which analyzed more than 100 studies of almost five million adults, was not designed to develop drinking recommendations, but to correct for methodological problems that plagued many of the older observational studies. Those reports consistently found that moderate drinkers were less likely to die of all causes, including those not related to alcohol consumption.

Most of those studies were observational, meaning they could identify links or associations but they could be misleading and did not prove cause and effect. Scientists said that the older studies failed to recognize that light and moderate drinkers had myriad other healthy habits and advantages, and that the abstainers used as a comparison group often included former drinkers who had given up alcohol after developing health problems.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/health/alcohol-health-effects.html

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