Quit the bottle if you want to live a long healthy life, study says
Regularly taking alcohol, even in moderate amounts, drastically reduces one’s life expectancy, a new study has shown.
The analytical research published in the scientific journal, JAMA Network, suggests that even moderate drinking poses a risk to people’s health.
The researchers analysed about 107 studies with more than 4.8 million participants.
It showed that drinkers who consumed about 25 grammes of alcohol at the very least were at risk of dying from alcohol-related illnesses. The risk gets worse if someone takes about 45 grammes or more in a day.
A standard drink in most countries has 14 grammes or less. This means that 25 grammes is about two bottles of an alcoholic drink.
The analysis showed that participants who were 50 years and below that were followed for at least 10 years and were occasional drinkers and medium-volume drinkers were found to have a heightened risk of mortality.
Women were hardest hit when they consumed about 25 grammes of alcohol, or more, compared to their male counterparts.
Tim Stockwell, one of the researchers, explained to USNews that low-level or moderate drinking is taking at least one of two alcoholic drinks in a day. The new analysis beefs up a recommendation from the World Health Organisation (WHO) earlier this year that warned that no amount of alcohol is safe for human health.
“Alcohol is a toxic, psychoactive, and dependence-producing substance and has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer decades ago — this is the highest risk group, which also includes asbestos, radiation and tobacco,” said the WHO. The agency said science is yet to identify a safe level of amount of alcohol to be consumed, just yet.
“It doesn’t matter how much you drink. The only thing that we can say for sure is that the more you drink, the more harmful it is,” explained Dr Carina Ferreira-Borges, the acting Unit Lead for Non-Communicable Disease Management and the Regional Advisor for Alcohol and Illicit Drugs in the WHO Regional Office for Europe.
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