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Alcohol isn't good for you, not even one glass of red wine

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Just when you thought one glass of wine a day was good for you...
Just when you thought one glass of wine a day was good for you...

A study has confirmed that no amount of alcohol will ever improve your health. This means that the one drink a day you thought was benefiting your health, is not actually good for you at all.

Researchers conducted the Global Burden of Disease study in 195 countries over a period of 26 years on people between the ages of 15 and 95. Once the data was analysed, it was published in the Lancet.

Many of us have heard or read about one glass of red wine being good for keeping heart disease at bay, and researchers have admitted that this may still be the case, but they also found that the risk of cancer and other conditions override this.

Zero, zip, zilch...

When comparing the data, researchers found that the optimal level of alcohol consumption that would minimise harm to health, across the board, was 0%.

Alcohol use is an increasing global risk factor according to the World Health Organization (WHO), and the study doesn’t only highlight possible diseases caused by the consumption of both copious and moderate quantities of alcohol, but also shines the spotlight on injuries one could suffer or inflict after consuming alcohol.

The study found that out of 100 000 non-drinkers, 914 would develop an alcohol-related health problem such as cancer or suffer an injury. However, in those people who consumed two alcoholic drinks a day, 63 more (977) developed a condition within a year, and in those who had five drinks a day, 338 more (1 252) developed a health problem in a year.

Policies need to be reconsidered

The results of the Global Burden of Disease study show that alcohol is one of the leading risk factors and causes for deterioration of health, and suggest that alcohol control policies may need to be revisited and reconsidered.

Researchers concluded that further studies need to be done on calculating the impact of unrecorded alcohol consumption, drinking patterns and binge drinking, especially in young people.

Image credit: iStock

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