The idea that a glass of wine a day – or similar – is good for health has been established in part of the population for years, but it is erroneous and is based on studies that use biased methods: there is no level of consumption of alcohol safe.
This is the main conclusion of a meta-analysis that examines the Conclusions from 107 previous works and that shows that Drinking in moderation does not lengthen 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 illnesses than 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 said in a statement.
“Studies linking moderate alcohol consumption to health benefits suffer from fundamental design flaws”says lead researcher Tim Stockwell.
The main problem is that they generally focused on older adults 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.
There is no safe level of alcohol consumption, concludes meta-analysis
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, when you looked 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.
Instead, it was the “lower quality” studies (older participants, without distinction between former drinkers and lifelong abstainers) those who Yes, they linked moderate alcohol consumption with greater longevity.
The idea that moderate alcohol consumption leads to a longer, healthier life dates back decades, but in reality, its consumption does not lengthen people’s lives and, in fact, carries some potential health dangers, such as an increased risk of certain types of cancer.
That’s why, the authors point out, no major health organization has ever established a safe level of alcohol consumption. “There simply is no safe level of consumption,” Stockwell concludes.