Is moderate drinking really good for you?

March, 2016

A new review of 87 studies linking moderate drinking to health benefits has concluded that many were flawed, with designs suggesting benefits where there were likely none.

A key problem was how "abstainers", the typical control group, were defined. As “current abstainers”, they can include people in poor health who've cut out alcohol. Unfortunately, only 13 of the 87 studies avoided biasing the abstainer comparison group (65 studies included former drinkers in the abstainer group, while 50 studies included occasional drinkers). Those 13 showed no health benefits for moderate drinkers.

Even without correcting for this, it was actually "occasional" drinkers — people who had less than one drink per week; a biologically insignificant amount of alcohol — who lived the longest.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-03/joso-imd031616.php

Stockwell, T., Zhao, J., Panwar, S., Roemer, A., Naimi, T., & Chikritzhs, T. (March 2016). Do "moderate" drinkers have reduced mortality risk? A systematic review and meta-analysis of alcohol consumption and all-cause mortality. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 77(2), 185-198. http://dx.doi.org/10.15288/jsad.2016.77.185

Related News

A mouse study found that high levels of alcohol over a long period of time were associated with high levels of a marker for inflammation, along with impaired cognition and motor skills.

A British study following 550 adults over 30 years from 1985 has found that those who reported higher levels of alcohol consumption were more often found to have a shrunken

Research using human cell cultures and mice suggests that those with an uncommon variation of the aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 gene (ALDH2) may be more at risk of Alzheimer's if they consume alcohol.

A 10-year study involving 19,887 middle-aged and older Americans, who completed surveys every two years about their health and lifestyle, has found that those who had a drink or two a day tended to show less cognitive decline, compared to non-drinkers.

Data from 196,383 older adults (60+; mean age 64) in the UK Biobank found that a healthy lifestyle was associated with lower dementia risk regardless of genes.

Both an unhealthy lifestyle and high genetic risk were associated with higher dementia risk.

Large study shows level of beneficial alcohol consumption much lower than thought

How alcohol increases Alzheimer's risk

A pilot study involving 106 participants of the Rush Memory and Aging Project who had experienced a stroke followed participants for an average of 5.9 years, testing their cognitive function and monitoring their eating habits using food journals.

A new discovery helps explain why the “Alzheimer’s gene” ApoE4 is such a risk factor.

A study involving 12 rhesus macaques, of whom some were given access to alcohol, has found that those who drank moderately showed enhanced responses to a smallpox vaccine (compared with the control group of monkeys who drank sugar water), indicating a bolstered immune system, while heavy drinker

Pages

Subscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest health newsSubscribe to Latest news
Error | About memory

Error

The website encountered an unexpected error. Please try again later.