Key Points:
- The debate over whether alcohol is healthy began with studies done decades ago showing that people who drink red wine live longer.
- Later, research showed that a molecule in red wine can increase the lifespan of mice.
- A new study tries to look at all the studies done on alcohol and health to come to a conclusion about the effect of alcohol on health, and it does not look like any amount is good for a longer, healthier life.
Alcohol’s health benefits have been hotly debated, driving a lot of research. Some of the findings are not exactly surprising—typically, the more you drink, the worse your health gets. But there are a lot of studies where little to moderate amounts of alcohol, like a glass of wine a day once or twice a week, seem to actually improve people’s health.
For example, a 2017 research article found that low-to-moderate red wine consumption is good for the heart. Several studies link light, regular alcohol consumption—not just red wine—to longer lifespans. However, a study from last year found that even small amounts of alcohol increase cancer and early death risk. These Inconsistent results are raising questions among researchers.
So, which one is it? Are low amounts of alcohol actually good for your health, or is any amount of alcohol bad for you?
The French Paradox
The idea that alcohol could be healthy took off in the 1990s when scientists discovered that the French had low cardiovascular disease rates despite eating lots of saturated fat. Researchers called this phenomenon the “French paradox” and proposed that wine drinkers may have a lower risk of heart disease.
Later, in the early 2000s, Mediterranean-style diet and alcohol consumption were linked to longevity, specifically red wine. Then a whole bunch of buzz was generated after one study showed that middle-aged Italian men who drank five glasses of red wine per day lived a longer life than men who drank less or more alcohol.
Over thirty years since the first “red wine is good for you” studies were published, countless global studies have been conducted. However, these studies are heavily self-reported and can be influenced by socioeconomic and lifestyle factors, making them difficult to interpret.
Also, many health-conscious people watch what they eat and exercise every day but have wine with dinner once a week. Obviously, these people will be in better health than any non-drinker who is eating a box of poptarts for breakfast and a bucket of fried chicken for dinner every night. Others smoke hookah or marijuana without drinking. All of these issues must be addressed to understand alcohol’s true health effects, which is difficult.
What the latest research shows
The latest findings are from the same group that published a study a year ago indicating that moderate alcohol consumption does not lower mortality risk. People who were critical of these results, particularly those in the alcohol industry, said that the research was of poor quality.
In response, the researchers examined previous studies that found health benefits from moderate alcohol consumption for biases or errors. Over 4.8 million people and 425,564 fatalities were assessed in 107 observational studies across age and ethnicity. They examined several key factors, including the cohort’s age and whether participants had a lifetime or recent abstinence from alcohol. They defined low-volume moderate alcohol consumption as 1–14 drinks per week, or 1.30–25 g of ethanol daily.
Once they controlled for confounding factors, the researchers found no benefit to drinking any amount of alcohol, low or moderate. They also found that many health-conscious abstainers may have skewed studies. The authors argue that alcohol and all-cause mortality studies are too biased and confounding to support low-risk consumption guidelines.
Longevity expert David Sinclair on alcohol
Returning to the “red wine is good for you” storyline, which gained popularity after David Sinclair, a celebrated longevity researcher, published a 2006 paper on resveratrol, a compound in red wine that benefits health and aging. Every news outlet jumped on this bombshell study with a tagline about how red wine is healthy! The research summary usually said resveratrol extends worm, fruit fly, and fish lifespan. However, the research showed more nuance.
Sinclair did not study healthy mice. These mice ate Western food and were chubby, showing the usual signs of disease that we see in elderly obese people. The mice that consumed resveratrol were still fat, but they appeared to be immune to the health effects of obesity. Their arteries were clear, their liver was nice and thin, their bones were stronger, and they could go further. In some ways, this study suggested that resveratrol could be a good supplement for someone who does not have the best eating habits and may be overweight, but it does not imply that simply taking resveratrol will make you live longer, regardless of your health or age.
Sinclair boasted in many interviews that he revealed his “scientifically”-backed eating and drinking routine and that he drank whiskey almost daily, which changed the story.
But all of a sudden, a couple of years ago, Sinclair completely dropped his support for any amount of alcohol being good for you. He even started posting on social media more and more about the negative effects of alcohol.
In an interview with GQ, Sinclair said, “Before that I was on a red wine and cheese-based diet, which was not conducive to health as much. It’s good to know though that the recent data on alcohol is showing that even one glass a day of alcohol is going to affect your brain cells.”
And Sinclair is not alone in this stance. Many longevity talking heads like Andrew Huberman have spent a lot of time on this topic, going into depth in podcast episodes why lab experiments show that any amount of alcohol is bad for health.
So, along with the mass exodus of scientists from the belief that alcohol is good for you, newer and more rigorous research on alcohol and humans suggests seriously considering the risks of alcohol consumption.
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