“Drinking a moderate amount of alcohol per day does not—as once thought—protect against death from heart disease,” The Washington Post wroteAccording to a clear new analysis of alcohol research, “it does not contribute to longer life.”
The review, which examined existing research on the health and drinking habits of nearly 5 million people, is one of the largest studies to overturn the widely held belief that wine or other alcoholic beverages are good for you. Last year, researchers in Britain examined genetic and medical data on nearly 400,000 people and concluded that even low alcohol intake was linked. Increased risk of disease.
The new study, which appears Friday JAMA Network Open, also found that drinking relatively small amounts of alcohol — 25 grams (less than 1 ounce) a day for women and 45 grams (about 1.5 ounces) or more a day for men — actually increased the risk of death. A standard wine pour is about 5 ounces. The standard serving size for beer is 12 ounces, and for distilled spirits, 1.5 ounces. “This study shatters the hope of many that moderate alcohol use is healthy,” said Robert DuPont, a psychiatrist and substance abuse expert who served as the first director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The effects of alcohol are funded by the alcohol industry. A recent report found that 13,500 studies were conducted directly or indirectly Paid for by art…
The new review, called a “meta-analysis,” looked at 107 observational studies involving more than 4.8 million people. The study emphasized that previous estimates of the benefit of moderate alcohol consumption on the risk of death from “all causes” — meaning including heart disease, cancer, infections and automobile accidents — were “significantly” biased by study design flaws. Previous research has not adjusted for many factors that can affect results, for example, age, gender, economic status and lifestyle behaviors such as exercise, smoking and diet, they said. Using statistical software, researchers essentially remove bias, adjusting for various factors that can skew research. After doing so, they found no significant reduction in the risk of death from any cause among moderate drinkers.
