A new study has dismissed the longstanding belief that light or moderate alcohol consumption is good for the heart.
Published in JAMA Network Open, the research reveals that older adults with health issues who drink at low-risk levels are more likely to die of cancer when compared with people who drink only occasionally.
The risk increases for moderate drinkers, who are more likely to die from cancer and other causes, whereas high-risk drinkers are especially sensitive to cancer, cardiovascular disease, and total death.
The study included over 135,000 participants aged 60 and older who participated in the 2006-2010 cohort of the UK Biobank, a large-scale biomedical database.
Each participant received a score based on health risks and neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics. The researchers then tracked their health outcomes over a median of 12.4 years.
The expert discovered that, compared to occasional drinking, high-risk drinking was related with a 33% higher chance of death from any cause, as well as a higher risk of dying from cancer or cardiovascular disease.
Moderate-risk drinking was related with a 10% higher risk of death from any cause than occasional drinking, as well as a 15% higher risk of death from cancer. Even low-risk drinking increased the risk of cancer death by 11% when compared to occasional drinking.
These findings highlight the importance of public health measures addressing alcohol-related health inequities.
The study’s lead author, Rosario Ortolá, underlined the negative impact of alcohol on cancer mortality.
“The detrimental effects on cancer deaths are observed from the first drop,” she said.
The findings come on the heels of a June report from the World Health Organization (WHO), which stated that alcohol was responsible for 2.6 million deaths globally in 2019, with the highest death rates occurring in low-income countries.
“The death rates due to alcohol consumption per litre of alcohol consumed are highest in low-income countries and lowest in high-income countries,” the report reads.
