Study Debunks Claims of Alcohol’s Benefits

Dr Saheb Sahu, FAAP, MPH. 

Drinking a small amount of strong alcohol here and there probably won’t kill you. But it won’t help you live longer either.

 According to a study published in the JAMA (Journal of American Medical Association) Network open on March, 31st, 2023, researchers set out to make sense of years of conflicting evidence on alcohol’s effect on health. The researchers analyzed 107 studies on the effect of alcoholic nearly five million (fifty lakhs) people. The findings of the study were as follows:

1. They found that no amount of alcohol consumption led to longer life than among people who never drank.
2. People who drank 45 grams (about 45ml) of alcohol or more a day (about 3 glasses of wine) increased their risk of dying sooner by about 33 percent. Among women, anything more than 25 grams (more than 2 glasses of wine) increased their risk of dying sooner by about 25 percent.
3. For men who drink 3-5 drinks a day, their mortality increases by 15-25 percent and those who drink 5 or more drinks a day by 30-35 percent. For women who drink 2-3 drinks a day, their mortality increases by 20-30percent, with 3-5 drinks 20-40 percent and 5 or more drinks a day by 45-80 percent.
4. The findings suggest that the average man can drink up to about 3 drinks a day and expect to live as long as non-drinkers. For women it is two drinks a day. They may not die early but they will likely to have other problems.

Conclusions:

Alcohol consumption is linked to more than 200 diseases like, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, liver disease, many digestive problems, cancer of the breast, mouth, throat, voice box, esophagus (food pipe), liver, pancreas, colon and rectum and many more, death from accidents and suicides. This new study joins a large body of evidence that alcohol consumption does more harm than good. Many of the older studies which had touted the benefits of moderate drinking were found to be faulty. The message from all public health authorities are clear, if you are drinking now, quit, and if you cannot quit, if you are a man limit your drink to 2-3 drinks a day and if you are a woman, limit to 1-2 drinks a day.

 Sources-1- Jamanetwork.com/March 31, 2023. 2- The Wall Street Journal, 4-1-23 p.A1, A6