New study says no safe level of alcohol, not one cup or one shot
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britains health authority for example suggests not exceeding 14 drinks per week to keep health risks from alcohol to a low level1 even an occasional glass of wine or beer increases the risk of health problems and dying according to a major study on drinking in 195 nations that attributes 2.8 million premature deaths worldwide each year to alcohol1 despite recent research showing that light-to-moderate drinking reduces heart disease the new study found that alcohol use is more likely than not to do harm1 the protective effect of alcohol was offset by the risks griswold told afp in summarising the results published in medical journal the lancet on friday1 overall the health risks associated with alcohol rose in line with the amount consumed each day1 compared to abstinence imbibing one standard drink 10 grammes of alcohol equivalent to a small beer glass of wine or shot of spirits per day for example ups the odds of developing at least one of two dozen health problems by about half-a-percent the researchers reported1 looked at one way that seems like a small increment 914 out of 100000 teetotallers will encounter those problems compared to 918 people who imbibe seven times per week1 but at the global level that additional risk of 0.5 percent among once-a-day drinkers corresponds to about 100000 additional deaths each year said senior author emmanuela gakidou a professor at the university of washington and a director at the institute for health metrics and evaluation1 those are excess deaths in other words that could be avoided she told afp1 the risk climbs in a steep j-curve the study found1 an average of two drinks per day for example translated into a 7.0 percent hike in disease and injury compared to those who opt for abstinence1 with five units of alcohol per day the likelihood of serious consequences jumps by 37 percent1 the less is better none is best finding jibes with the world health organizations long-standing position but is at odds with many national guidelines especially in the developed world1 there is no safe level of alcohol said max griswold a researcher at the institute for health metrics and evaluation in seattle washington and lead author for a consortium of more than 500 experts including some nigerians1 there is always a lag between the publication of new evidence and the modification and adoption of revised guidelines said gakidou who admitted to being an occasional drinker herself1 the evidence shows what the evidence shows and i like 2.4 billion other people on the planet that also consume alcohol need to take it seriously1 overall drinking was the seventh leading risk factor for premature death and disease in 2016 accounting for just over two percent of deaths in women and nearly seven percent in men1 the top six killers are high blood pressure smoking low-birth weight and premature delivery high blood sugar diabetes obesity and pollution1 but in the 15-49 age bracket alcohol emerged as the most lethal factor responsible for more than 12 percent of deaths among men the study found1 the main causes of alcohol-related deaths in this age group were tuberculosis road injuries and self-harm mainly suicide1 we now understand that alcohol is one of the major causes of death in the world today said lancet editor richard horton. we need to act now. we need to act urgently to prevent these millions of deaths. and we can1 this study used 694 data sources on individual and population-level alcohol consumption along with 592 prospective and retrospective studies on the risk of alcohol use. more than 500 gbd collaborators such as researchers academics and others from more than 40 nations contributed to the study according to max griswold senior researcher and lead author1 with the largest collected evidence base to date our study makes the relationship between health and alcohol clear drinking causes substantial health loss in myriad ways all over the world griswold said1 in 2016 eight of the leading 10 countries with lowest death rates attributable to alcohol use among 15- to 49-year-olds were in the middle east kuwait iran palestine libya saudi arabia yemen jordan and syria. the other two were maldives and singapore1 conversely seven of the leading 10 countries with highest death rates were in the baltic eastern european or central asian regions specifically russia ukraine lithuania belarus mongolia latvia and kazakhstan. the other three were lesotho burundi and central african republic1 kings college london professor robyn burton who did not take part in the study described it as the most comprehensive estimate of the global burden of alcohol use to date1