Your Usual Dinnertime Tipple of Wine?

"Our study is now one more mosaic stone in the evidence which is coming to show that what we believed for decades might not be true."

"We undertook this research to ask, what kind of people are these [past habitual drinkers]? What characteristics do they have?

"If people talk about alcohol, they always warn of becoming alcohol dependent ... but these people are less than two percent of the health disorders which may accrue from alcohol. Prevalent health disorders -- cardiovascular disorders and cancers -- should be much more stressed, and particularly breast cancer. It's very, very important because it's the number one cancer among females."

"Alcohol has a very, very long tradition in culture. So, it will be a huge endeavour to go ahead with this message that the best is to stay abstinent from alcohol."

"We have all these lessons learned from the tobacco industry and the alcohol industry which acts in a very, very similar way. So they support studies and investigations about these hypotheses, and particularly resveratrol."

"The main message is that people should remember to reduce their drinking [regardless] of whether they are high consumers or very low consumers."

"[The best way to prevent alcohol-related health disorders] -- namely cardiovascular disease and cancers, and mortality as well -- [is not to drink it at all, which is in line with the World Cancer Research Fund's recommendations]."

Ulrich John, University Medicine Greifswald, Germany 

The study contradicts most national guidelines which say there may be health benefits to one or two glasses of wine. Photograph: Inti St Clair/Getty Images

 

But ... but we've been assured for years -- decades -- that moderate consumption of alcohol is highly beneficial to human health -- haven't we? Now along comes research published in the journal PLOS Medicine that tells us otherwise. The study by Ulrich John of University Medicine and his colleagues in Greifswald, Germany carries an unequivocal message: if you consume alcohol and cite its health benefits, you might see merit at this point in reconsidering your devotion to alcohol as health-beneficial.

This Germany-based research team studied 4,028 adults, finding that increased mortality among abstainers may be explained in part by other factors; alcohol for example, or drug dependence, smoking and a general history of poor health. A glass of wine or a pint of beer daily to benefit health is being prescribed in many countries by doctors; belief in the benefits of modest amounts of alcohol is that widespread and pervasive. 

Older epidemiological studies inexorably led to this interpretation "with many shortcomings", suggesting that alcohol abstainers have a higher mortality rate than those who consume low to moderate amounts. No significant difference in mortality between abstainers in good health and those who drank moderately was found by the new study, countering recommendations to drink alcohol for good-health reasons.

Other health behaviours, suggested by accessible evidence, including sedentary lifestyle, tobacco and substance use, have a dose-dependent relationship with mortality and health disorders; in that the greater the exposure, the higher the risk that follows. In light of which Dr.John found it "very implausible" that alcohol should be singled out as an exception, with health benefits.

Dr. John's research group investigated 4,028 adults between 1996 and 1997 with the use of standardized diagnostic interviews, including "very exact" information on health, alcohol and drug use along with smoking habits. The researchers revisited their data two decades later, which included mortality information, and drew comparisons between alcohol abstainers and low to moderate drinkers to find that 91 percent of alcohol abstainers were former drinkers, and 72 percent identified with one at least risk factors, such as a former alcohol or drug use disorder; former risky alcohol consumption; efforts to cut down or stop drinking; daily tobacco smoking; or fair to poor health.

They found no statistically significant difference in mortality rate between the health abstainers without any "factors that predict early death" and those who consumed low to moderate amounts of alcohol. The Women's Health Initiative Observational Study showed drinking even small amounts of alcohol increases the risk of breast cancer, the most common type of cancer worldwide, the second-leading cause of death from cancer among women in many countries.

Alcohol consumption has the potential to raise blood pressure levels and it has been linked to increased risk of hypertension, itself a major cause of premature death. Unfortunately, there is no strong global movement to alert populations to the dangerous effects of alcohol, a hugely socially accepted relaxant. Risks associated with articles praising "immune-boasting cocktails" aside, as well as those promoting the antioxidant properties of red wine, alcohol benefits from its undeserved health-halo effect.

Resveratrol, an anti-oxident, is found in over 70 plant species, in particular grapes and it is often cited as vital to the purported health benefits of wine. "It is not known whether there is a safe and effective dosage for chronic disease prevention", the conclusion reached by the Linus Pauling Institute. However, most supplements contain 250 to 500 milligrams of resveratrol, while a 150-millilitre (five-ounce) glass of red wine contains less than a milligram (0.2 - 0.5 milligrams). "You have to take huge amounts to have an effect", cautioned Dr.John. "And based on the evidence we have right now these hypotheses do not make sense."

So the conclusion that Dr.John's study reaches, along with an increasing body of evidence, is that no matter how much you drink, drink less. Those who take note, might alter drinking habits, limiting it to a glass of wine on holidays and abstaining for all other ordinary, daily events. "Many people do not know that they are, in essence, alcohol dependent. And this is the best way to learn (by abstaining for defined periods of time)."