There is “no safe” level of alcohol to drink, experts claim today in a study of the global impact of the chemical.
About a third of the world’s population drink alcohol and it is responsible for 6.8% of male deaths annually, according to the report in The Lancet.
In 2016 it was the seventh leading risk factor for premature death and disability, according to the analysis.
Drinking low levels of alcohol may protect against ischaemic heart disease – but the experts say this is outweighed by the increased risk of developing cancer.
According to the analysis, taking one drink of alcohol daily increases the risk of developing one of 23 health problems by 0.5%.
The researchers analysed nearly 600 studies, involving 28 million people, conducted over 26 years in 195 countries.
They find the heaviest drinkers are in Romania where the average male consumes more than eight drinks a day. Denmark has the greatest density of drinkers – more than 95% of the population.
Researcher Dr Max Griswold, from the University of Washington, Seattle, USA, said: “Previous studies have found a protective effect of alcohol on some conditions, but we found that the combined health risks associated with alcohol increase with any amount of alcohol. In particular, the strong association between alcohol consumption and the risk of cancer, injuries, and infectious diseases offset the protective effects for ischaemic heart disease in women in our study.
“Although the health risks associated with alcohol starts off being small with one drink a day, they then rise rapidly as people drink more.”
Writing in The Lancet, Dr Robyn Burton, of King’s College, London, UK, says: “The conclusions of the study are clear and unambiguous: alcohol is a colossal global health issue and small reductions in health-related harms at low levels of alcohol intake are outweighed by the increased risk of other health-related harms, including cancer.”
British GPs said they were not “killjoys” – and urged the public to observe maximum drinking limits.
Royal College of GPs chair Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard said: “If you choose to drink alcohol, then it is really important that you do so responsibly, and this study is a stark reminder of the real, and potentially lethal, dangers that too much alcohol can have on our health and that even the lowest levels of alcohol intake increase our risks.”
Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016 GBD 2016 Alcohol Collaborators Lancet 23 August 2018
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