Alcohol: Possible benefits, risks, and more

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Deciding about drinking

Assessing the risks and benefits of alcohol consumption remains an active area of research that may lead to major changes in official guidelines or warning labels. Current alcoholic beverage labels in the US warn of the risks of driving under the influence of alcohol, adverse effects on general health, and risks for a developing fetus — but there’s no mention of cancer. Knowing the health benefits of some alcoholics is great, but it’s equally important to know which drinks to skip. If you’re trying to stay healthy, take these drinks out or rotation, Kober says. “We have to clarify that alcohol is, indeed, a poison. So we’re not trying to say alcohol itself is healthy,” says Megan Kober, a registered dietitian with Metabolism Makeovers. “But research has shown that having a drink or two a day can actually have some protective heart health benefits and in my opinion, it’s because it helps us relax.”

Drinking in moderation

In heavy drinkers, binge drinking may cause your liver to become inflamed. In worst-case scenarios, liver cells die and get replaced with scar tissue, leading to a serious condition called cirrhosis (3, 6, 7). Alcohol manufacturers have previously expressed some willingness to finance the studies—similar to the way pharmaceutical companies finance most drug testing—but that has often led to criticism. This happened to us, even though external experts found our proposal scientifically sound.

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• Overall, the studies had small sample sizes and short durations.
• Amid the current health and wellness wave, which tends to endorse drinking less, wineries are experiencing a downturn.
• Excess alcohol intake has an association with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes.
• It’s not any one study that makes semaglutide appear to be a silver bullet—it’s an entire constellation of research showing various ways in which it might help.
• Binge drinking—and heavy drinking—is a type of alcohol misuse (a spectrum of risky alcohol-related behaviors).

It is also addictive, especially for people with a family history of alcoholism. That said, consuming high amounts does not provide greater health benefits. Heavy drinking causes health problems — regardless of the type of beverage. More than four drinks daily appear to cause a fivefold increase in your risk of mouth and throat cancer, as well as an increase in your risk of breast, colon and liver cancer (58, 59, 61, 62).

A 2017 meta-analysis found an association between moderate alcohol consumption — 12.5 grams or less per day — and a reduced risk of dementia. Because your brain is very sensitive to damage, chronic alcohol abuse may increase your risk of dementia and cause brain shrinkage in middle-aged and older adults (12, 13, 14, 15). In August of 2018, two larger studies examined the impact Oxford House of alcohol. The first one, published in The Lancet, included only people who drank at least some alcohol. It concluded that common recommendations regarding “moderate” drinking (one drink a day or less for women, and two drinks per day or less for men) might be too much.

• One of my favorite sayings is that there are no silver bullets in medicine.
• One watershed moment was a 2017 publication from the American Society of Clinical Oncology that established that even modest drinking could increase a person’s risk of developing cancer.
• Too much beer can cause a drop in blood glucose levels because alcohol prevents the liver from producing glucose.
• And so it’s not that you should be scared and cut out the glass of wine with dinner or getting beers with your friends, but just remembering that there is no amount that is going to be good for you per se.
• A drink also may help raise a man’s testosterone levels, which makes both men and women friskier.
• In one study, women who had one or two glasses of red wine a day said they had more desire, arousal, and sexual satisfaction than those who didn’t.

Lowers The Chance Of Diabetes

• It’s produced by yeasts that digest sugar in certain carb-rich foods, such as grapes — used to make wine — or grains — used to make beer.
• Drinking moderately if you’re otherwise healthy may be a risk you’re willing to take.
• Despite the fact that individual effects of low and moderate drinking may be small, Stockwell notes that they can add up across the population.
• In addition, women tend to have more body fat, which tends to retain alcohol.
• Instead, observational studies can only really demonstrate associations, not causal relationships.

In fact, your overall diabetes risk tends to drop with moderate alcohol consumption. However, when it comes to heavy drinking and binge drinking, your risk rises (53, 54, 55, is alcohol good for you 56). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines light drinking as three drinks or fewer per week and moderate drinking as no more than one drink per day for women and up to two per day for men.

Drinking in moderation may have some protective effects for the cardiovascular system. It may also increase insulin sensitivity in type 2 diabetes and reduce the risk of dementia. Long-term alcohol drinking may also lead to alcohol use disorder, which involves difficulty stopping or regulating alcohol consumption despite negative social and health consequences. However, the same analysis states that excessive drinking — 38 grams or more per day — may increase the risk of developing dementia. Excess alcohol intake has an association with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes.

Health Conditions

In my own life, I have moderated my drinking by limiting myself to at most two nights per week and at most two drinks per night. I still get to enjoy my coveted Cabernet once in a while, but having some loose rules for myself has made it easier to reduce my intake. “I think for people that are light drinkers, they probably don’t need to put a ton of brain space here,” Noelle LoConte, who co-authored the ASCO’s 2017 statement on alcohol and cancer, told me.