A Study Finds No Health Advantages in Moderate Drinking

It is a sorrowful day for wine enthusiasts as a recent study published in JAMA Network Open reveals that the health benefits of drinking one or two glasses of alcohol a day may not be true.

The study conducted one of the largest reviews on moderate drinking and found major flaws and biases in the design of thousands of studies that claimed alcohol helps increase life longevity. "There’s an increased understanding about how these bias bad studies, and we need to look at better designed studies to get a clearer picture," said study co-author Tim Stockwell, PhD, director of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria in Canada.

Although previous research has been ambiguous, the latest review shows a clear picture of alcohol’s effects on health; no amount of alcohol can protect against disease or extend a person’s lifespan, and even moderate drinking can have significant health effects.

Dr. Stockwell and his colleagues have been questioning the alleged health benefits of alcohol for decades. They have found that most studies grouped people who had stopped drinking because of age or worsening health as abstainers, creating a bias that people who drank more were healthier. Several studies have come out with similar findings, including a 2022 study that looked at the health outcomes of over 121,000 drinkers and found an increased risk of heart disease in people who had the occasional beverage.

“There’s all these apparent benefits from alcohol, which can’t be real,” Stockwell said. “People are making it sound like a panacea.”

Beverage companies funded conferences, cherry-picked the results of studies, and hand-picked experts that would talk about the advantages of drinking and downplay any harmful consequences. If this was a medication, nobody would have validated them, but "because big alcohol companies were behind them, they kind of slipped through the cracks and made people billions of dollars," adds Jarid Pachter, DO, a doctor specializing in addiction medicine from Stony Brook Medicine.

The latest study in JAMA Network Open expands their review to 107 alcohol studies published between 1980 and 2021, making it one of the largest pieces of evidence criticizing alcohol’s lack of health benefits. One main issue that kept coming up in the studies was how difficult it was to measure the course of drinking over a person’s lifetime. In reality, people change their drinking habits for several reasons, and most studies captured only a moment in a person’s life and assumed that has always been their drinking pattern.

Eighty-six of the 107 studies misclassified former drinkers and occasional drinkers as being abstinent. One reason this may have biased the results is that former drinkers are more likely to develop health problems over time, and it's possible they cut down or stopped their alcohol consumption when they became sick.

“If you only look at what people are currently drinking, the nondrinkers will always look less healthy than the people who are robust and healthy enough to continue drinking,” Stockwell told Health. 

Since most alcohol studies were observational, other factors in people’s lives could have influenced their health outcomes. Some biases in the studies came from not considering age, financial wealth, and sex when analyzing the results. Others failed to consider people’s decisions in life, such as how often they smoked or exercised.

“This study attempted to correct systemic biases that were present in prior research,” Rigved Tadwalkar, MD, a cardiologist at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, who was not involved in the study, told Health. “It has provided a more accurate analysis of the relationship between alcohol consumption and mortality.”

Once the study authors identified the biases, they looked at what would happen if you slightly improved these “bad studies.” They used statistical software to remove the bias and added any potential factors that could influence the final outcomes.

The researchers found no association between moderate alcohol drinking and the risk of death from all causes. Deaths from all causes ranged from dying from heart disease to road crashes, and fatal injuries. “The apparent benefits disappear and the little benefits that were there were no longer significant,” Stockwell said.

Drinking one to two drinks actually hurt more than helped with longevity. The risk of premature death went up in women who drank 25 grams (.88 ounces) of alcohol per day and in men who drank 45 grams (1.58 ounces).

The findings debunk the J-curve relationship used to describe alcohol and mortality. The theory is that the lowest point of the curve is those who are moderate drinkers and have the lowest risk of disease and mortality compared to nondrinkers and heavy drinkers. “People are so focused on the bottom of the J because we’ve been told moderate drinkers live longer and are healthier, says Dr. Stockwell. “But there’s no J-shaped curve and no apparent benefits.”

The 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends abstaining or drinking in moderation to reduce health risks related to alcohol consumption. The guidelines suggest two drinks or fewer for men and a maximum of one drink for women.

However, other major organizations like the World Health Organization and the World Heart Federation have warned that there’s no safe level of alcohol consumption.

Does this new research mean you have to pour out all your bottles? Not exactly. Experts recommend using this time as a wake-up call to reevaluate your relationship with alcohol.

You’re not doing your body any favors if you’re drinking for health reasons. If that’s the case, you’re better off drinking as little as possible. But if you’re drinking socially like a celebration, then having one or two is likely fine.

“I’m not going to sit here and tell you that you shouldn’t drink alcohol,” Patcher said. “But you should pick the moments you’re going to partake and when it would really enhance their experience.”

The bottom line: if you’re doing to drink, do it for pleasure, not health.