If you drink alcohol, you lose.
New research suggests that as we age, no amount of alcohol is safe or beneficial to our health.
A 12-year British study following 135,000 adults aged 60 and over found that even light drinking was associated with increased cancer mortality, most notably among older adults who lived in low-income areas and had underlying health problems.
These findings contradict the conventional wisdom that small amounts of alcohol, especially red wine, are good for the heart, a notion based on questionable evidence that professed wine drinkers in France have lower rates of heart disease.
A new study published Monday in the journal JAMA Network Open argues that deaths from heart disease are not declining. Light or moderate drinkers, regardless of health status or socioeconomic status.
“We found no evidence of a beneficial association between low alcohol consumption and (overall) mortality,” Rosario Ortola, an assistant professor of preventive medicine and public health at the Autonomous University of Madrid and the study’s lead author, told The New York Times.
She added that far from being beneficial for one’s health, consuming alcohol is likely to increase one’s risk of cancer “from the first drop”.
The study showed that heavy drinking (greater than 40 grams per day in men and 20 grams per day in women) was associated with increased mortality from all causes.
A standard drink in the United States contains 14 grams of alcohol, which is the equivalent of 12 ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of liquor.
Moderate drinking means 20-40 grams of alcohol per day for men and 10-20 grams per day for women.
The latest findings are in line with other research suggesting that consuming just one alcoholic drink a day could shorten a person’s lifespan by about two and a half months.
Another study found that abstaining from or reducing alcohol consumption significantly reduced the risk of developing oral and esophageal cancer.
In the latest study, researchers found that drinking mostly wine and only with meals reduced the risk of death, especially from cancer. Dr. Oltola suggested that the reduced risk could be because alcohol is absorbed more slowly, or it could reflect other healthy lifestyle choices.
The US Dietary Guidelines state that “reducing alcohol consumption is more healthy than increasing it” and that women should limit themselves to one drink per day and men to two drinks per day.
With the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans due to be released in the coming months, scientific groups are preparing a report on the relationship between alcohol and health.
In 2023, the Canadian Centre on Drug Use and Addiction released updated health guidelines on drinking alcohol. Despite the centenarian myth that a glass of wine is the secret to longevity, Canadian officials reported that “alcohol in any amount or type, even small amounts, is not good for your health.”
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has stated that alcohol is a known carcinogen and that alcohol consumption increases the risk of several cancers, including breast, liver, head and neck, esophageal and colorectal cancer.
The WHO argued that alcohol “can pose health risks” even when consumed in small amounts, but noted that “most alcohol-related harm results from occasional or sustained high consumption”.
