Just How Healthy Is Alcohol?

I have at least one glass of wine each evening and a few more at the weekends. I’ve heard that moderate drinking may help to prevent diseases such as Alzheimer’s, but also causes cancer. I’m confused.

The bottom line is that light to moderate drinking, which on average means between one to eight units of alcohol a week, is the optimum to get the potential health benefits, while not endangering your short or long-term health — with the exception of breast cancer.

Of course, any observed benefits that come with drinking are wrecked by overdoing it. And so, while research now indicates that 1 to 3 drinks a day helps to lower the risk of heart disease, go above this and the benefits turns to increased risk. The same goes for type 2 diabetes.

With Alzheimer’s the evidence that drinking may help to protect the brain from this disease is in its infancy but again, if more proof confirms a link, it is almost bound to be from a regular small indulgence and not heavy drinking.

Bones may also benefit from moderate drinking. Katherine Tucker, of Tufts University, Boston, US, discovered from a study of more than 2,200 people that the apparent protective effect of alcohol on bone density was larger than for any single nutrient — even calcium. This effect was particularly strong for postmenopausal women. Those having two drinks a day had a 5 to 8.3 per cent increased bone density in their hips and spines compared with their teetotal peers.

Another quirky positive for alcohol is that female moderate drinkers have a potential lower body weight compared with non-drinkers. Having scrutinised the food and drink intake of more than 19,000 women of normal weight aged 39 plus, researchers found that after 13 years, although there was a progressive average weight gain, moderate drinkers gained around 3.5lb (1.6kg) compared with 7lb gains in abstainers.

Women who had taken one to two alcoholic drinks a day proved to have an almost 30 per cent lower risk of becoming overweight or obese. It is possible that this is because teetotallers substituted other drinks, such as fizzy pop, squashes, etc, for their couple of glasses of wine. Men, on the other hand, tended to add alcohol to their daily intake of other drinks, making them more at risk of weight gain from moderate drinking.

So, a drink a day could be just what the doctor ordered. Unfortunately, analysis of some 53 population studies has revealed an increase in risk of breast cancer for every 10g of alcohol drunk. 10g is about a unit which is a 125ml glass of 8-9 per cent strength wine, half-a-pint of lager or a shot of spirits.

Scientists believe the reason for this could hinge on alcohol’s ability to increase levels of the oestrogen circulating in our blood. Ultimately, sticking within the safe drinking guidelines of 3-4 units per day for men and 2-3 for women is about as good as the advice currently gets. By Amanda Ursell, The Times