No Amount of Alcohol Is Healthy, Confirms Global Study

To date, most health experts maintain that up to one drink a day is okay for your health, with some studies previously mentioning some health-protective effects of alcohol. However, the most recent in depth research on the effects of alcohol on health reveals that no amount of alcohol is good for you.

The global study, titled, The Global Burden of Diseases study, analyzed levels of alcohol use and its effects in 195 countries from 1990 to 2016, and includes insights from 592 studies and 28 million people worldwide. The study published in The Lancet in August 2018 analyzed data from 15 to 95-year-olds. The report states, "Our results show that the safest level of drinking is none." It further says, "This level is in conflict with most health guidelines, which espouse health benefits associated with consuming up to two drinks per day."

The authors of the study say that moderate drinking may protect people against ischemic heart disease, but they found that the potential to develop cancer, injuries, and infectious diseases from drinking outweighed these potential benefits. The lead author of the study, Dr Max Griswold said, "Although the health risks associated with alcohol start off being small with one drink a day, they then rise rapidly as people drink more."

One of the study authors, Professor Sonia Saxena explained, "This study goes further than others by considering a number of factors including alcohol sales, self-reported data on the amount of alcohol drunk, abstinence, tourism data and the levels of illicit trade and home brewing."

The study defined a drink as 10g of alcohol, equating to a can or bottle of beer, a shot of spirits, or a small glass of wine.

The study revealed that alcohol consumption led to 2.8 million deaths in 2016, and was the leading factor for disease worldwide, accounting for about 10 percent of deaths among people aged 15 to 49.

“Alcohol use contributes to health loss from many causes and exacts its toll across the lifespan, particularly among men,” the study says. The study found that globally, 27.1% of cancer deaths in women and 18.9% in men over 50 were linked to their drinking habits.

The study also showed that one in three, or 2.4 billion people around the world drink alcohol, with Denmark having the most drinkers (95.3% of women, and 97.15 of men), and Pakistan having the fewest make drinkers (0.8%) and Bangladesh the fewest women (0.3%).

The report's senior author, Professor Emmanuela Gakidou said, “Alcohol poses dire ramifications for future population health in the absence of policy action today. Our results indicate that alcohol use and its harmful effects on health could become a growing challenge as countries become more developed, and enacting or maintaining strong alcohol control policies will be vital." She continued, “Worldwide we need to revisit alcohol control policies and health programs, and to consider recommendations for abstaining from alcohol. These include excise taxes on alcohol, controlling the physical availability of alcohol and the hours of sale, and controlling alcohol advertising. Any of these policy actions would contribute to reductions in population-level consumption, a vital step toward decreasing the health loss associated with alcohol use.”

You may want to reconsider your relationship with alcohol after reading this.