FROM YAHOO NEWS ON ALCOHOL
Zero tolerance: no safe level of alcohol, study says
,
AFP•
Paris
(AFP) - 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 booze.
"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.
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 harm.
"The
protective effect of alcohol was offset by the risks," Griswold told
AFP in summarising the results, published in medical journal The Lancet
on Friday.
"Overall, the health risks associated with alcohol rose in line with the amount consumed each day."
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 reported.
Looked
at one way, that seems like a small increment: 914 out of 100,000
teetotallers will encounter those problems, compared to 918 people who
imbibe seven times per week.
"But
at the global level, that additional risk of 0.5 percent among
(once-a-day) drinkers corresponds to about 100,000 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 Evaluation.
- 'Less is better, none is best' -
"Those are excess deaths, in other words, that could be avoided," she told AFP.
The risk climbs in a steep "J-curve", the study found.
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
abstinence.
With five "units" of alcohol per day, the likelihood of serious consequences jumps by 37 percent.
The
"less is better, none is best" finding jibes with the World Health
Organization's long-standing position, but is at odds with many national
guidelines, especially in the developed world.
Britain's
health authority, for example, suggests not exceeding 14 drinks per
week "to keep health risks from alcohol to a low level".
"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" herself.
"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
seriously."
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 men.
The
top six killers are high blood pressure, smoking, low-birth weight and
premature delivery, high blood sugar (diabetes), obesity and pollution.
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
found.
- The 95 percent club -
The main causes of alcohol-related deaths in this age group were tuberculosis, road injuries and "self-harm", mainly suicide.
King's
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 date."
The
examination of impacts drew from more than 600 earlier studies, while a
country-by-country tally of prevalence -- the percentage of men and
women who drink, and how much they consume -- drew from another 700.
Both were grounded in new methods that compensated for the shortcomings of earlier efforts.
Among
men, drinking alcohol in 2016 was most widespread in Denmark (97
percent), along with Norway, Argentina, Germany, and Poland (94
percent).
In Asia, South Korean men took the lead, with 91 percent hitting the bottle at least once in a while.
Among
women, Danes also ranked first (95 percent), followed by Norway (91
percent), Germany and Argentina (90 percent), and New Zealand (89
percent).
The biggest drinkers, however, were found elsewhere.
Men
in Romania who partake knocked back a top-scoring eight drinks a day on
average, with Portugal, Luxembourg, Lithuania and Ukraine just behind
at seven "units" per day.
Ukranian
women who drink were in a league of their own, putting away more than
four glasses or shots every 24 hours, followed by Andorra, Luxembourg,
Belarus, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland and Britain, all averaging about three
per day.
The most abstemious nations were those with Muslim-majority populations.
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