What’s New in Psychology?

Are Low Levels of Alcohol Use Protective Against Disease?       

Jim Windell

            Conventional wisdom has it that drinking low to moderate amounts of alcohol has health benefits. For instance, a glass of red wine every day will protect you against heart disease because it is chuck full of antioxidants. Drink a highball as a nightcap and you’ll sleep better. Here’s one from a few decades ago: doctors advised pregnant women to drink beer. It was supposed to be good for them because of the iron in beer.

            Does alcohol confer any health benefits? Can drinking a beer or sipping a glass of wine be good for you?

            These are questions which motivated researchers to take a closer look at a number of studies to see if alcohol use could be justified. The results were recently published in Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research.

            For the study, the authors culled through 6,000 articles published between 2017 and March 2021, selecting the 14 meta-analyses that met the study criteria to include in their systematic review. The review examined high-quality studies of the dose-response risk relationships between alcohol use and disease for 18 diseases identified by international health organizations as having a causal relationship with alcohol use and which, in most cases, can be fatal.

           The outcome? For all conditions included in the review, the risk of developing the disease increased as alcohol use increased. Although unquestionably high levels of alcohol use have clear detrimental health effects, and while lower-level alcohol use can be protective against certain diseases, it can have significant adverse health effects for many other diseases.

           Low-dose alcohol use had protective effects against coronary heart disease, stroke, and brain hemorrhage in both men and women and against diabetes and pancreatitis in women. However, low-dose alcohol use increased the risk for other diseases. At all doses examined, alcohol use was associated with significant increases in risk for tuberculosis, lower respiratory infections, oral cavity and pharyngeal cancers, esophageal cancer, colorectal cancer, liver cancer, laryngeal cancer, epilepsy, hypertension, liver cirrhosis and, in men, pancreatitis.

           The study found that men who had one standard drink per day had a significant protective effect against stroke; but had significant increases in health risks for tuberculosis, lower respiratory infections, diabetes, epilepsy, hypertension, atrial fibrillation, cirrhosis, pancreatitis, and several types of cancer, including cancers of the pharynx, esophagus, liver, larynx, colon, and rectum.

           Similarly, low-level alcohol use by women conferred a significant protective effect against the risk for diabetes, stroke, and pancreatitis, but at those same levels, their risk significantly increased for high blood pressure, epilepsy, hypertension, atrial fibrillation, cirrhosis, tuberculosis, lower respiratory infections, and many types of cancer, including breast cancer, oral cavity, and pharynx cancer, esophageal cancer, colorectal cancer, liver cancer, and larynx cancer.

           As might be expected, the authors urge greater awareness that any level of alcohol use can increase a person’s risk of developing serious, even fatal, diseases.

           To read the study, find it with this reference:

           Levesque, C., Sanger, N., Edalati, H., Sohi, I., Shield, K. D., Sherk, A., ... & Paradis, C. (2023). A systematic review of relative risks for the relationships between chronic alcohol use and the occurrence of disease. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.