Occasional drinking and abstention are the healthiest approaches to alcohol, according to a new analysis.
The researchers, led by Dr Andrew Kunzmann of Queen’s University Belfast, UK, wanted to investigate the safety of light to moderate alcohol consumption, in order to clarify public health messages.
Their findings run against previous research that has suggested that light drinking is better than abstention.
They looked at the links between average lifetime alcohol intake and risk of both cancer, and death from all causes. Their study included 99,654 men and women aged 55 to 74 years, followed for an average of nine years. This showed some clear associations between alcohol consumption and cancer.
Compared with light drinkers (one to three drinks per week), never or infrequent drinkers (less than one drink week), as well as heavy (two to three drinks per day) and very heavy drinkers (three or more drinks per day) had increased overall mortality and risk of cancer.
The overall risk was raised by 7% to 9% for never or infrequent drinkers, 8% for heavy drinkers, and 20% for very heavy drinkers. Results appeared in PLoS Medicine.
"This analysis is limited to older adults, and residual confounding by socioeconomic factors is possible," the authors caution.
Nevertheless, they conclude: "The study supports a J-shaped association between alcohol and mortality in older adults, which remains after adjustment for cancer risk.
"The results indicate that intakes below one drink per day were associated with the lowest risk of death."
They add that the findings should not be taken to support a protective effect of light drinking.
Kunzmann, A. T. et al. The association of lifetime alcohol use with mortality and cancer risk in older adults: A cohort study. PLoS Medicine 19 June 2018; doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1002585
http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002585
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