According to the authors of the Global Burden of Diseases study, which was conducted at the University of Washington, in Seattle, there is no healthy level of alcohol consumption. The primary conclusion of this study is that even occasional drinking can harm our health.
The report was recently published in the Lancet medical journal.
Alcohol led to the death of almost 3 million people in 2016. Twenty percent of the deaths targeted the population between ages 15 and 49.
The paper writes that alcohol habits pose “dire ramifications for future population health in the absence of policy action today. Alcohol use contributes to health loss from many causes and exacts its toll across the lifespan, particularly among men.”
“Our results show that the safest level of drinking is none.”
This is the conclusion from the report, arguing that the national guidelines are wrong about the health benefits from one or two glasses of wine or beer per day.
The study was conducted by researchers at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) who investigated alcohol consumption and its effects in 195 countries between 1990 and 2016. Gathering data from 694 studies, they found out how common drinking habits were and other 592 studies on 28 million people on the globe were used to find out the health risks.
Moderate drinking was believed for a long time to be beneficial – a glass of red wine a day was said to be good for the heart. And indeed it was, said, researchers. But the benefits were outweighed by the harmful effects that came with alcohol.
Women over 50 years old increase their risk of cancer by drinking alcohol. The death in younger population was linked to tuberculosis, road injuries and self-harm.
The senior author of the report, Prof Emmanuela Gakidou, stated 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.”
Gakidou recommends that its healthier to abstain from alcohol, so governments should “include excise taxes on alcohol, controlling the physical availability of alcohol and the hours of sale, and controlling alcohol advertising.”
Commenting on the Lancet report’s conclusion, King’s College London’s Dr. Robyn Burton stated:
“There is strong support here for the guideline published by the Chief Medical Officer of the UK who found that there is ‘no safe level of alcohol consumption.’”
Doris’s passion for writing started to take shape in college where she was editor-in-chief of the college newspaper. Even though she ended up working in IT for more than 7 years, she’s now back to what he always enjoyed doing. With a true passion for technology, Doris mostly covers tech-related topics.