For people whose social lives involve a lot of alcohol, the idea of having fewer than seven drinks a week may seem laughable. And hey, you do you — but it’s worth considering that a study like this one, which draws data from over half a million people in 19 high-income countries, is a pretty comprehensive one. Those drinking more than five glasses of wine or pints of beer each week are at greater risk of a fatal aneurysm, a study finds.
- It should be noted that the regular drinkers in Table 1 includes the ex-drinker group because the portion of ex-drinker was very small (3%) but the hazard ratios were large and were comparable with regular drinkers.
- In addition, male and female demographics and clinical characteristics by drinking status presented separately in Table S3 and S4 as the difference of health risk in relation to alcohol between male and females does exist.
- The mortality risks of various diseases in males were analyzed from the data of the National Cancer Registry and National Death File.
Sober for nearly a decade, Issy Hawkins spoke to LADbible about her experience with alcohol
With the availability of a large cohort of nearly half a million subjects followed between 1996 and 2008, we compared modest drinkers (no more than one drink a day) or regular drinkers with non-drinker. Because a large number of drinkers also smoke, we analyzed the risks individually and in combinations. The research found that drinking more than 100 grams of alcohol per week – equal to roughly seven standard drinks in the United States or five to six glasses of wine in the UK – increases your risk of death from all causes and in turn lowers your life expectancy.
Sorting out the health effects of alcohol
The study focused on current drinkers to reduce the risk of bias caused by those who abstain from alcohol due to poor health. However, the study used self-reported alcohol consumption and how much does drinking shorten your life relied on observational data, so no firm conclusions can me made about cause and effect. The study did not look at the effect of alcohol consumption over the life-course or account for people who may have reduced their consumption due to health complications. The answer has varied over time, but a widely accepted definition of moderate alcohol consumption — as endorsed by the US Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of Agriculture — is one drink or less per day for women or two drinks or less per day for men.
Drinking just one alcoholic beverage per day shortens your lifespan by this insane amount
“The key message of this research for public health is that, if you already drink alcohol, drinking less may help you live longer and lower your risk of several cardiovascular conditions,” said Angela Wood, a biostatistician from the University of Cambridge, who led the study. It’s also important to note that the CDC considers binge drinking as more than five drinks in two hours (four drinks for women) — that is, American binge drinking guidelines don’t allow for as much alcohol as British ones. If that’s something you’re doing tonight at happy hour, keep in mind that your health risk may be even higher than the ones discussed in this study. After a long day or week or month at work, it can be nice to unwind with a drink or two or three or four. But when you wake up feeling the effects of all that alcohol from the night before, you may wonder what the physical toll of all that drinking is.
- The report, published in The Lancet, found that a 40-year-old regularly drinking between 200g and 350g of alcohol per week – about 10 to 18 glasses of wine or pints of beer – had a lower life expectancy of around one to two years.
- Those exceeding 350g of alcohol every week could shed four to five years off their life.
- Compared with nondrinkers, regular drinkers in males shortened life by 6.86 years (95% CI 6.58–7.14 years), while regular drinkers with smoking loss 10.25 years (95% CI 9.84–10.66 years) when compared to nonsmoking non-drinker.
- “The key message of this research for public health is that, if you already drink alcohol, drinking less may help you live longer and lower your risk of several cardiovascular conditions,” said Angela Wood, a biostatistician from the University of Cambridge, who led the study.
- «The key message of this research for public health is that, if you already drink alcohol, drinking less may help you live longer and lower your risk of several cardiovascular conditions,» Wood said in a statement.
- The worrying statistics were found in a study conducted by the University of Michigan which delved into just how much time certain processed foods take from your life.
In the other hand, male modest drinkers gain 0.94 years (95% CI 0.65–1.23 years) and male modest drinkers who were never smokers gain 3.97 years (95% CI 3.65–4.29 years), but loss 2.04 years (95% CI 1.64–2.44 years) if smoking (Fig. 1). A team of international researchers studied the drinking habits of almost 600,000 current drinkers included in 83 studies across 19 countries where about 50% reported drinking more than 100 grams per week and 8.4% more than 350 grams per week. Data on the age, sex, diabetes status, smoking habits and other factors relating to cardiovascular disease were also analyzed. In conclusions, modest drinkers, no more than one drink a day, had benefits and could gain nearly 1 year in life expectancy, in contrast to a loss of nearly 7 years if drinking more than that.
Higher UFP intake was also linked to a 21% greater risk of death (from any cause), obesity, a 40-66% greater risk of heart disease, sleep problems, and a 22% higher chance of depression. People who do not drink at all can have worse health, also — something that can confuse consumers and doctors alike. According to the World Health Organization, alcohol causes at least seven types of cancer, including bowel and female breast cancer. It has been proposed that for every ten grams of alcohol per day (one beer, wine, or shot of hard alcohol in the U.S. is about 10 to 12 grams of alcohol), the risk of breast cancer may increase anywhere from 4-13%, per Huberman. And the risk of developing cancer increases substantially the more alcohol is consumed. While some studies have linked the occasional happy hour to health benefits, no doctor worth their two cents would recommend picking up a drinking habit.
Those consuming three to six standard drinks per week could be at an elevated risk of developing several types of cancer, including breast and colon cancer. Having zero drinks per week, for example, has its benefits, such as better health and sleep. The CDC says more than 38 million American adults admit to binge-drinking once a week and guzzle an average of eight drinks per spree. “The paper estimates a 40-year-old drinking four units a day above the guidelines has roughly two years lower life expectancy,” said David Spiegelhalter, a risk expert at Britain’s University of Cambridge who was not involved in the study. People who reported drinking more had higher rates of stroke, heart disease, deadly high blood pressure and fatal aortic aneurysms, the team reported in the Lancet medical journal.
🍷 Does alcohol shorten—or lengthen—your life? Longevity experts weigh in
The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Copyright © 2025 ClickOrlando.com is managed by Graham Digital and published Drug rehabilitation by Graham Media Group, a division of Graham Holdings. She recommends therapy with a professional to work through trauma, volunteering, and bonding with a pet, among other suggestions, for dealing with adversity. According to Dr. Hill, equitable school programs, supplemental nutrition assistance, visiting nurse partnerships for pregnant and new mothers, and a program called Reach Out and Read can all help families. He also says the positive parenting movement is helpful, as it replaces punishment with reward, structure, and a system for helping children regulate their own emotions and behavior.
The behaviors and factors that threaten longevity
- This may disrupt the neural circuits that control alcohol intake, encouraging people to drink more.
- The argument that there’s benefit to a dirty martini (extra olives, of course) can always be made, one way or another.
- Other potentially lethal conditions related to physical inactivity include osteopenia (loss of bone mass), sarcopenia (excessive muscle loss), hip fractures (which carry an increased rate of mortality for older adults), depression, dementia, and stroke.
- Dr. Harry emphasizes that prolonged sitting is linked to an increased risk of obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes, and many more chronic conditions that may increase the risk of premature death.
- Cancer were increased in modest drinkers for oral (HR 2.35, CI 1.38–4.01) and esophageal (HR 3.83, CI 1.90–7.73) cancer.
Every time you reach for a coke, you https://ecosoberhouse.com/ could be losing 12 minutes of your life, scientists have claimed. Canada’s Guidance on Alcohol and Health is based on the latest research on alcohol-related risks, replacing Canada’s Low-Risk Alcohol Drinking Guidelines issued in 2011. The app was released just in time for Dry January, a campaign that encourages Canadians to go alcohol-free in January. Researchers say the free app is designed to educate Canadians on alcohol’s impact on health and well-being and to interact with research from Canada’s Guidance on Alcohol and Health.
How Bad Is Alcohol, Really?
Secondly, there might be residual confounding factors in addition to the 15 confounders we controlled, such as the mental and socioeconomic status in suicide analysis. Lastly, the case numbers in certain death categories were too small, such as breast and bladder cancer, and may affect the statistical accuracy. As the majority of drinkers (64.6% in total and 72.2% in males) also smoked, further analysis of non-smoking drinking HRs were needed to avoid the mixing effect of smoking and drinking.
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