Research published Thursday offers a sobering rebuttal to the idea that booze can be life-extending. In a new review of the data, scientists failed to find high-quality evidence that people who drink light to moderate amounts of alcohol are likely to live longer than people who abstain from drinking. The findings suggest that there isn’t really a truly safe level of alcohol consumption.
For many years, there’s been a steady drip of studies suggesting that light to moderate drinking can be beneficial to our longevity and health, particularly when it comes to our hearts. Other recent research is increasingly finding contradictory evidence, however, while some scientists have criticized the methodology of these rosier studies.
The sick abstainer effect
One major criticism has revolved around people who quit drinking alcohol. Some abstainers rarely consumed alcohol during their lives, while others are former heavy drinkers who quit due to health issues caused by their alcohol use. Scientists run the risk of skewing comparisons between abstainers and moderate drinkers by including individuals who abstain due to health issues in the general group. Since those with health issues are likely to be sicker than average, this can unfairly favor moderate drinkers.
Scientists from the University of Victoria in Canada tried to correct for this and other gaps in their newest review of the evidence, published Thursday in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.
“Unlike past attempts, we focused on identifying and testing study characteristics that may bias estimates of mortality risk, providing a more robust analysis of the available data,” study author James Clay, a postdoctoral research fellow at the university’s Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research, told Gizmodo in an email.
Controlling for bias
Clay and his team looked at more than 100 studies that followed people’s health over time and included information on their reported level of drinking. When the team analyzed the data as a whole, they found a small association between a longer life and low-volume drinking (defined as anything between one drink a week and up to two drinks a day). They then divided the studies into those considered higher or lower quality research and analyzed them separately. Higher quality research, for example, included studies that excluded former drinkers from the abstainer group or started tracking people at a younger age. And when they only looked at the higher quality data, a different picture emerged.
“Essentially, when we carefully controlled for potential biases, the supposed health benefits of low-volume alcohol consumption disappeared,” Clay explained.
The team’s findings aren’t the first to question the idea of healthy drinking, even for our hearts. But according to the researchers, there is still an ongoing debate over the issue. By trying to identify and account for these potentially flawed studies, they hope to push for a more honest appraisal of alcohol’s risks, which can also include cancer and liver disease.
“Our findings suggest that the perceived health benefits of low-volume drinking are likely a result of biased study designs. Therefore, it indicates that there may not be a truly safe level of alcohol consumption,” Clay said. “This challenges the notion that moderate drinking is beneficial and highlights the need for updated guidelines that accurately reflect the health risks associated with any level of alcohol consumption.”
Earlier this February, new research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that annual alcohol-related deaths in the U.S. have climbed as of late, with an average 178,307 deaths during 2020 to 2021. And while the greatest health risks of alcohol come from binge or chronically heavy drinking, it’s likely that most drinkers could benefit from cutting down on the booze at least a tad.
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