The idea that a glass of wine a day – or something similar – is good for your health has been ingrained in part of the population for years, but it is erroneous and based on studies that use biased methods: there is no safe level of alcohol consumption.
This is the main conclusion of a meta-analysis that examines the findings of 107 previous studies and shows that drink in moderation does not prolong life. The new research is published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs and is led by researchers from the University of Victoria (Canada).
Over the years, work has suggested that Moderate drinkers enjoy longer lives with lower risk of heart disease and other chronic ills than abstainers.
This has fueled the widespread belief that alcohol, in moderation, can be a ‘tonic’ for health. However, “not all studies paint such a rosy picture,” the journal said in a statement.
“Studies linking moderate alcohol consumption to health benefits suffer from fundamental design flaws,” says lead researcher Tim Stockwell.
Comparing moderate drinkers with ex-drinkers or abstainers
The main problem is that they generally focused on older adults and did not take into account the habits of alcohol consumption throughout life.
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.”
In other words, comparing moderate drinkers to former drinkers or health abstainers may make moderate drinkers appear healthier.
“Lower quality” studies
For the analysis, the team identified 107 published studies that followed people over time and analyzed the relationship between eating habits and alcohol consumption 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.
However, digging deeper, things changed, the statement recalls. There were a handful of studies “higher quality” which included relatively young people at first (under 55 on average) and which ensured that former and occasional drinkers were not considered ‘abstainers’.
In those studies, moderate alcohol consumption was not associated with a longer life.
Instead, they were the “lower quality” studies (older participants, no distinction between former drinkers and lifelong abstainers) who did link moderate alcohol consumption with greater longevity.
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 some potential health dangers, such as an increased risk of certain types of cancer.
For this reason, the authors note, no major health organization has ever established a risk-free level of alcohol consumption. “There is simply no safe level of consumption”Stockwell concludes.
(With information from EFE)
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