Rethinking drinking has become a growing trend as recent research throws cold water on claims that moderate consumption of alcohol benefits overall health. Better scientific methods used since around 2010 have revealed links between excessive booze and over 200 serious medical conditions, including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and injuries.
As a result, several countries such as the UK, France, Denmark, Holland, Australia, Ireland (which will require warning labels on alcohol from 2026) have lowered their recommended limits for safe drinking. This trend is also reflected in cultural shifts that encourage people to cut back or quit altogether during initiatives like Dry January and Sober October.
However, previous studies comparing heavy drinkers with moderate ones often failed to take into account factors such as education level, income, and access to healthcare which can skew results. Moreover, many of these studies did not include younger participants who are more susceptible to alcohol-related health problems. This has led experts like Dr Timothy Naimi from the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria in British Columbia to assert that “less is better” when it comes to drinking and overall wellbeing, as thousands of US deaths could be prevented annually if people followed existing government guidelines recommending no more than one drink a day (or two for men) on average.
These studies also show alcohol consumption leads to increased risk factors associated with certain types of cancer such as colon, liver, breast, and mouth/throat cancers because drinking results in the breakdown product acetaldehyde damaging cells that struggle to repair themselves – which could create ideal conditions for tumour growth.
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