Alcohol: Friend or Foe

If you believe that a glass of wine or other alcohol is good for you, think again.

The popular belief that moderate drinking reduces the risk of heart attack is based on flawed data that could be dead wrong.

Although virtually everyone agrees that heavy drinking compromises health, many have taken to advocating “moderate drinking” for its purported health benefits.  According to an exhaustive review of the scientific literature by Kaye Fillmore of UCSF in a study that appears in the most recent edition of Addiction Research and Theory, this is a faulty conclusion.

Many previous studies advocating the consumption of alcohol were based on seriously flawed data.  The “control groups” used in these studies included people who abstained from alcohol due to advancing age, serious illness or the use of drugs that precluded the use of alcohol.  This biased the non-drinking group making it appear that drinkers were healthier than non-drinkers. 

There are 7 studies that examined long-term abstainers from alcohol who did not quit for health reasons, and NONE of these 7 studies showed any benefit from consuming alcohol.  There is an old saying that statistics don’t lie, but liars use statistics, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the advertising of alcohol as a health promoting food.  When it comes to alcohol and your health, it appears that the less alcohol, the better.