Doubts over benefit of low alcohol intake

Friday October 23rd, 2009

New findings challenge the theory that drinking a little alcohol may be good for the health.

Moderate drinking has even been linked to increased income - with some suggesting that this is because of its health benefits.

The idea is challenged today by Johan Jarl of Lund University, Sweden, and colleagues using a wide range of findings from health studies.

According to the analysis, low alcohol intake actually carries higher medical costs than abstinence. Reduced medical costs were only seen for people over 80 years of age, and a lower rate of inpatient care was found for women.

They report that men who drank up to five units a day and women who drank up to 2.5 units a day cost the health service more than those who did not drink at all. Full results are published in the journal Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation.

The authors write: "Using health as an explanation in the alcohol-wage literature appears invalid when applying the full epidemiological information instead of selected information."

They add: "When conducting a study based on the full epidemiological information, i.e. inclusion of all alcohol-related diseases, it turns out that low alcohol consumption has a net detrimental effect."

This study discourages the use of "health" as a simplified concept without well-reasoned mechanisms, they warn, as other important factors are overlooked. "It should come as no surprise that the nature of links such as this is normally complex and care should be taken not to oversimplify.

Mr Jarl stated that the alcohol/income link may be due to other factors, such as "family background and social networking".

Jarl, J., Gerdtham, U. G. and Selin, K. H. Medical net cost of low alcohol consumption - a cause to reconsider improved health as the link between alcohol and wage Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation (in press).

Tags: Drug and Alcohol Abuse | Europe | General Health

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