Is Moderate Drinking Good for You?

For years, doctors and scientists have touted the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption. 

Consumers were told that a glass of wine with dinner might, among other things, reduce stress, improve mental health, help the gut and heart, and reduce the risk of some cancers, albeit while increasing the risk for others. 

But what if those recommendations were based on flawed research?

Just as scientists once told us that eggs were bad and fat should be avoided, the latest flip-flop turns the conventional wisdom about moderate alcohol consumption on its head. 

Medical Xpress has the details on the new report and explains the flaws that led to the conclusion about the so-called benefits of drinking alcohol. Here’s the start of the story:

Probably everyone has heard the conventional wisdom that a glass of wine a day is good for you—or you’ve heard some variation of it. The problem is that it’s based on flawed scientific research, according to a new report in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

Over the years, many studies have suggested that moderate drinkers enjoy longer lives with lower risks of heart disease and other chronic ills than abstainers do. That spurred the widespread belief that alcohol, in moderation, can be a health tonic. However, not all studies have painted such a rosy picture—and the new analysis sheds light on why.

In a nutshell, studies linking moderate drinking to health benefits suffer from fundamental design flaws, said lead researcher Tim Stockwell, Ph.D., a scientist with the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria.

The major issue: Those studies have generally focused on older adults and failed to account for people’s lifetime drinking habits. So moderate drinkers were compared with “abstainer” and “occasional drinker” groups that included some older adults who had quit or cut down on drinking because they’d developed any number of health conditions.

“That makes people who continue to drink look much healthier by comparison,” Stockwell said.

And in this case, he noted, looks are deceiving.