Drinking a glass of wine a day is NOT good for your health

At the request of the UK Chief Medical Officers, a group of experts were asked to evaluate evidence about the levels and types of health harm that alcohol can cause. The guidelines state “people have a right to accurate information and clear advice about alcohol and its health risk”. The guidelines takes into account new scientific evidence and concludes that regular drinking over time can lead to a variety of illnesses including cancer (alcohol increases the risk of 7 types of cancer, including breast, mouth and bowel), strokes, heart disease, liver disease and damage to the brain and nervous system. Men and women should keep within the recommended guidelines of no more than 14 units per week which includes several alcohol free days as this keeps your risk low. A glass of wine contains 2.3 units of alcohol.

Dame Sally Davies, England’s Chief Medical Officer, was on Radio 4 Today programme this week.   She said ‘There is no doubt that the more we drink, the bigger our risks. Every year, over 20,000 people in the UK have a diagnosis of cancer made consequent on drinking alcohol. There is an old wives tale that we were all brought up on – that a glass of red wine protected the heart – what we find is the science and evidence now is that, because of the improvements in heart outcomes, which is a success story in this country because of reducing smoking, controlling cholesterol, controlling blood pressure, has gone down and then you have a different balance of harms. If you look at the data, you see for men that they would have to drink extraordinary little to get an improvement in their long term mortality, whereas for women, there’s a small group aged over 55 who drink up to five units in the week, there is some protection. But if they drink above five, they lose that protective impact of the alcohol”.

The UK Chief Medical Officers looked at the possible protective effects of drinking on heart disease, notably ischaemic heart disease (IHD) and concluded that drinking alcohol at low levels (less than 5 units a week) may have a protective effect, however it seemed to mainly only be relevant to women over 55 and that confounding factors, such as those who can afford to drink, may explain some of the effect.   “The group therefore concluded that the evidence supporting protective effects today is now weaker than it was at the time of the 1995 report and that there are substantial uncertainties around direct attribution to alcohol of the level of protection still observed. Taking this into account alongside all the known acute and chronic risks to health from drinking even at low levels, supports the conclusion of the group that there is no justification for recommending drinking on health grounds, nor for starting drinking for health reasons.”

The increased risk of cancer starts from any level of regular drinking and rises with the amount being drunk. For men, 64 in 1000 will develop bowel cancer and this stays the same for those drinking 14 units or less a week, but rises to 85 in 1000 for those drinking 14-35 units per week.  7% of bowel cancer is related to alcohol.

Read More:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-alcohol-guidelines-show-increased-risk-of-cancer

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/health-risks-from-alcohol-new-guidelines

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/alcohol-and-cancer

http://www.globalwomenconnected.com/2015/12/how-many-units-and-calories-in-a-bottle-of-wine/