A new, global study published in the medical journal The Lancet shows that small amounts of alcohol daily for people over the age of 40 without underlying diseases, have health benefits.
The authors of the study write that it can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke and diabetes.
If, on the other hand, you are under the age of 40, alcohol – even in small amounts – has no benefits.
“The largest study of its kind concludes that young people should not drink at all, while small amounts may benefit the elderly,” he says. The Guardian.
Higher health risk
Senior author Emmanuela Gakidou is a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. She says that the message of the study is very simple:
Young people should not drink alcohol.
– Older people can benefit from it in small amounts. Although it may not be realistic to believe that young adults will abstain from alcohol, we believe it is important to communicate the findings so that everyone can make their own decisions about health, says Gakidou.
The research, which has obtained data from the comprehensive study Global Burden of Diseases – prepared by 3600 researchers from 145 countries – shows that young people face a higher health risk from alcohol consumption than older adults.
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Harmful amounts
It is estimated that as many as 1.34 billion people in 204 countries have consumed harmful amounts of alcohol by 2020, according to the study.
59 percent of the people who drank harmful amounts were aged 15 to 39 years. Three quarters of these were men.
Among people aged 40 to 64, the researchers found that safe alcohol consumption is one to two units daily.
For adults over the age of 65, the study showed that the risk of health loss did not come until after three units a day.
The medical journal The Lancet was founded back in 1823 and to this day maintains its position as one of the world’s leading medical journals.
According to Large Norwegian encyclopedia it is a given for researchers to have scientific articles published in The Lancet.
Weekend drinking
In June, Dagbladet reported on an alcohol study published in the peer-reviewed medical journal American Journal of Preventive Medicinewhere an alarm was sounded about weekend drinking.
Many people try to cut out alcohol on weekdays, only to be able to spoon it out on the weekends with a clear conscience.
It is not wise, said the researchers behind the study.
“Many people assume that a moderate, average level of alcohol consumption is safe – regardless of drinking patterns,” Rudolf Moos, professor emeritus at Stanford University School of Medicine, told CNN.
The authors used data from a study that has followed a sample of Americans between the ages of 25 and 74 since 1995.
Alarms about weekend drinking
Charles Holahan, co-author and professor of psychology at the University of Texas, said that people who drink several units in a row are five times more likely to have alcohol problems.
– This means that a person who stays alcohol-free on weekdays, but who drinks seven units on a Saturday, has a greater risk than someone who drinks one unit every day for seven days. This even though they drink exactly the same amount in a week, Holahan explained.
– A known case
Doctor and writer Therese Wenger told Dagbladet in June that Norway has no official limit values for risky alcohol consumption or recommendations for weekly consumption.
Even low alcohol consumption can increase the risk of disease. At the same time, there are several factors that affect the risk associated with the amount of alcohol consumed:
Individual differences in age, gender, general health, medication consumption and how the individual reacts to alcohol.
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– It is a well-known fact that a large intake of alcohol in a short time is risky. When a person consumes large amounts of alcohol in a short time, there is an increased risk of accidents, alcohol poisoning and cardiovascular disease, said Wenger to Dagbladet.
Increasing among young adults
Although one may associate excessive drinking with students and teenagers, statistics show that frequent consumption of alcohol in a short time is increasing among people over 30 years, it writes US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA).
The researchers analyzed nearly 1,300 people who drank alcohol over a nine-year period, and found that most cases of binge drinking – as well as alcohol problems – occurred among people who drank moderately on average.
According to the NIAA, alcohol-related problems occur in women faster than in men, although women drink fewer units.
This is because women generally have a lower alcohol tolerance.
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