A study on the effects of alcohol on health looked at data from 1990-2016 in 195 countries. The research found that alcohol was the main cause of 12% of deaths for men between ages 15 and 49. They also found that in 2016, alcohol caused nearly 3 million deaths around the world.
From two drinks per day to zero
According to the senior study author, Dr. Emmanuela Gakidou of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, the safest level of alcohol is none. “Our findings are consistent with other recent research,” she explains, “which found clear and convincing correlations between drinking and premature death, cancer and cardiovascular problems. [This is] in conflict with most health guidelines, which espouse health benefits associated with consuming up to two drinks per day.”
Alcohol consumption worldwide
The study used data from 28 million people and found that 32.5% of people around the world consume alcohol. About 25% of women and 39% of men drink alcohol. While women drink about .73 alcoholic beverages per day, men drink 1.7.
The highest average alcohol consumption rate was for Romanian men (8.2 drinks per day) and Ukrainian women (4.2 drinks per day). The lowest for men was Pakistan (.0007 drinks per day) and the lowest for women was Iran (.0003 drinks per day).
Calculating health risks
The researchers wanted to compare abstaining from alcohol to consuming one drink per day to prove their point. They found that just one drink raised the risk of developing or experiencing one of the following 23 health problems by 0.5%:
- traffic-related injury
- violence
- self-harm
- unintentional injury
- diabetes, pancreatitis and other non-infectious diseases
- cardiovascular disorders such as stroke and heart disease
- several cancers, including breast, liver and parts of the digestive tract
- tuberculosis, respiratory and other infections
That translated to about 918 people out of 100,000 (for one drink per day) experiencing one of the health problems vs. 914 people out of 100,000 (for abstaining).
