Even an occasional glass of wine or beer increases the risk of health problems and dying, according to a major study on drinking in 195 nations that attributes 2.8 million premature deaths worldwide each year to booze.
“There is no safe level of alcohol,” said Max Griswold, a researcher at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, Washington and lead author for a consortium of more than 500 experts…
Zero tolerance: no safe level of alcohol, study says
Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016
Published:August 23, 2018
As far as I know, it didn’t make the local news in Seattle. The smoky air we have been breathing here in the last few weeks is undoubtedly more of a hazard.
IHME receives core grant funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation[46] and the state of Washington. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); Inter-American Development Bank; Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute; Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health
From the study-
“In 2016, eight of the leading 10 countries with lowest death rates attributable to alcohol use among 15- to 49-year-olds were in the Middle East: Kuwait, Iran, Palestine, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, and Syria. The other two were Maldives and Singapore.”
Citing one of two dozen health problems:
“914 out of 100,000 teetotallers will encounter those problems, compared to 918 people who imbibe seven times per week.”
Looking at Figure 5 in the study, the relative risk between 0 and 1 drink per day is the same.
Wonder what the relative risk of death by bullets is in the above mentioned countries? I think I’ll take my chances living here. Yet another study that tell us practically nothing meaningful. The Lancet these days should take a harder look at the editorial board. After Andrew Wakefield and the autism debacle, you would think they would be extra sensitive to bogus science.
If the study is true, it’s news, since for some years, the popular belief is that one or two drinks a day is actually good for you. I’ll certainly continue to live with the risk of moderate drinking (I also continue to eat eat beef, pork and lamb occasionally and to cook with butter, though not in Julia Child quantities). But it is worth knowing that the health risk estimates are not as rosy as we thought and most of the responses here strike me as whistling past the graveyard.
It doesn’t necessarily contradict those studies Jonathan.
For the most part, it seems like the health-related risks attributed to alcohol have to do with behavior. The link to cancer isn’t something that they explained very well, nor is it clear that there’s a causation rather than a correlation - cancer is typically associated with age. Further, are they talking about a couple of drinks or heavy usage when they discuss cancer?
If you drink and drive you might get into an accident. That’s not the same thing as saying if you smoke, the nicotine is going to give you lung cancer.
This was a study of studies if I’m not mistaken. They didn’t say much about the direct influence of alcohol on your body chemistry.
Nothing particularly new in the article.
An average of two drinks per day, for example, translated into a 7.0 percent hike in disease and injury compared to those who opt for abstinence.
. . .
But in the 15-49 age bracket, alcohol emerged as the most lethal factor, responsible for more than 12 percent of deaths among men, the study found.
The main causes of alcohol-related deaths in this age group were tuberculosis, road injuries and “self-harm”, mainly suicide.
For populations aged 50 years and older, cancers accounted for a large proportion of total alcohol-attributable deaths in 2016
Because not long from now there will be another with completely different conclusions.
Alcohol is not a “healthy option.” That being said, it enhances life through improving meals and enabling friendships. Don’t get crazy drunk and don’t drink and drive. All the rest is just details. Something is going to kill all of us.
I agree completely with this. I would be happier if health studies all indicated that up to two drinks a day kept the doctor away, but I may have to reckon with that very much not being the case. I don’t blame the messenger if the second case is the reality.
