A large study has shown that abstaining completely from alcohol is the best way to protect from the harm it may cause. There have been previous studies that have shown that around one drink a day for women and two for men could be beneficial for protection against heart disease. This new study debunks that idea. The study as part of the Global Burden of Diseases study, appears in the latest issue of the journal The Lancet.
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The researchers have found that the harm caused by drinking even a single unit of alcohol per day outweighs the benefits it may provide. Researchers show that taking a single drink a day can raise the risk of getting one of 23 alcohol-related health problems by 0.5 per cent when compared to not drinking. According to lead researcher Dr Max Griswold, from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington the previous studies have shown the protective effects of alcohol but the combine risks outweigh these purported benefits. He said in a statement, “In particular, the strong association between alcohol consumption and the risk of cancer, injuries, and infectious diseases offset the protective effects for ischaemic heart disease in women in our study. Although the health risks associated with alcohol start off being small with one drink a day, they then rise rapidly as people drink more.”
For this study the team collected alcohol and health related data from 592 studies with a total of 28 million participants. They used special statistical tests to assess the health risks of taking anything between zero and 15 standard alcohol drinks per day.
The team of researchers at Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), write that worldwide at least one in three persons (2.4 billion) drink some amount or some form of alcohol. Alcohol related health problems kill 2.2 per cent of women and 6.8 per cent of men. These health problems include cancers, liver disease, accidents, violence etc. They noted that Denmark led in alcohol consumption with 95.3 percent and 97.3 percent of women and men drinking respectively. Pakistan and Bangladesh scored lowest in alcohol consumption on the other hand (0.8 percent Pakistani men and 0.3 percent Bangladeshi women drank alcohol).
The study noted that globally drinking alcohol made it to the seventh leading risk factor for overall premature death and disease in 2016. Among individuals aged between 15 and 49 years, alcohol consumption was one of the most important risk factors causing 3.8 percent and 12.2 percent women’s and men’s deaths respectively. Above the age of 50, cancers are the most common cause of alcohol related deaths. Alcohol related cancers and other health issues kill 27.1 percent and 18.9 percent women and men respectively in this age group.
There is a 0.5 percent rise in the health risks among alcohol consumers who take at least one drink per day compared to teetotallers. This 0.5 percent means 918 people per 100,000 who took a single drink per day would develop a health condition compared to 914 who did not drink. Among persons who took two drinks and five drinks per day, the risk rose to 7 percent and 37 percent respectively. The researchers said that when the risks rose so exponentially, any benefits that alcohol could provide against heart disease or stroke or diabetes was found to be nullified or “statistically not significant”.
According to senior author Prof Emmanuela Gakidou, “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.” He added, “Worldwide we need to revisit alcohol control policies and health programmes, 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.”
Source: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31310-2/fulltext
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