Is it healthy to drink in moderation?

I have written several articles before about the relationship between drinking and health. The main content of these articles is,Excessive drinking can have a number of health hazards, but moderate drinking can also have health benefits, mainly by being able toReduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. However, alcohol is a carcinogen, and there is no safe amount of carcinogen, even A small amount of alcohol is also carcinogenic, so drinking to stay healthy is not recommended. But certain people,For those at high risk of coronary heart disease, for example, moderate drinking may be beneficial.

A paper recently published in the lancet, a British medical journal, analyzed the relationship between drinking and disease, based on data from 195 countries and regions. Many people are introducing the content of this paper, including a few who often do medical science on the Internet. For example, one half-web celebrity, who is said to be a medical doctor at the university of Tokyo, concludes that "there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. That means even a drop can be harmful. Even the smallest amount can do more harm than good. Several people asked me if I was wrong about drinking, according to the paper. Are we going to correct that?

In fact, the research results of this paper do not contradict what I said before. After analyzing the data in its own way, the paper still acknowledges that small amounts of alcohol can significantly reduce the risk of ischemic heart disease, drinking about one standard drink a day (one standard drink equals 10 grams of pure alcohol), reducing the risk of ischemic heart disease by 14 percent in men and by 18 percent in women. Moderate drinking can also reduce the risk of ischemic stroke and diabetes, but this reduction is not statistically significant. Although the study found that moderate drinking was less protective than other studies, the results were acknowledged. In addition, the paper found a linear relationship between alcohol consumption and the risk of diseases such as cancer and tuberculosis.

This paper a new place, to all sorts of diseases associated with drinking has positive and negative are integrated together to calculate the total risk, then concludes that while moderate drinking can reduce the risk of ischemic heart disease, but also can increase the risk of cancer, the effects cancel each other out, the result is a moderate amount of alcohol neither reduce or increase the total disease of wind, and not drinking is the same. After drinking more than 0.8 drinks per day, the overall risk of disease gradually increases. Summary of the paper said that the security of the drinking quantity is zero, refers to this conclusion, but look at the text and graphics, it is a day 0-0.8 standard drinks results are the same, is the so-called security, not that of the university of Tokyo, said Dr. "drinking even a drop of also potentially harmful", "minimum drinking will do more harm than good", in fact, according to data analysis in this paper, drink no more than 0.8 standard drinks a day, advantages and disadvantages are equal.

This analysis may have implications for public health policy. Moderate drinking reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease in some people, but it increases the risk of cancer in some people, so there is no need to promote moderate drinking, it is better not to drink at all, the result is the same as moderate drinking. But this kind of statistic has no guiding significance to individual health care. Specifically, if a person drinks alcohol in moderation, his risk of cardiovascular disease is not necessarily the same as his risk of cancer. Therefore, if a person is at high risk of cardiovascular disease, moderate drinking may do more harm than good to him. In turn, if a person is at high risk of cancer, especially for oral cancer and liver cancer, drinking no matter how small, may do more harm than good.

In addition to preventing cardiovascular disease, moderate drinking may have other health benefits. The BMJ recently published the results of a 23-year study that followed more than 9,000 people in France: 14 units of alcohol per week (equivalent to 8 grams of pure alcohol per unit) had the lowest risk of dementia, and non-drinkers had a 47% increased risk of dementia by drinking more than 14 units per week. The results are consistent with previous studies. But these studies are not as extensive as those on the prevention of cardiovascular disease with moderate drinking, and are relatively preliminary. If the study comes to a more definitive conclusion, then it's worth weighing whether to lower the risk of alzheimer's disease or worry about increasing the risk of cancer. 

In a word, it is not proper to advocate drinking for health care. It is also an exaggeration to argue that one drop of wine should not be drunk. Drinking alcohol, like many diets, involves weighing the pros and cons and making choices.