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A multidisciplinary team of U.S. scientists released a federal report on alcohol’s effects. They reviewed dozens of studies from around the world. Led by the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD), the report shows alcohol consumption usually harms health; cases where it doesn’t are the exception.
A recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) also links alcohol consumption to a higher cancer risk.
Dr. Kevin Shield, who contributed to the report, told the Daily Mail: “No level of alcohol consumption is completely safe.”
U.S. guidelines recommend men limit their alcohol intake to two drinks a day and women to one, but scientists increasingly challenge the idea that even modest drinking is harmless, arguing we now understand more about alcohol’s effects on the body.
Researchers found that one drink per week raises the risk of 19 different diseases compared with complete abstinence.
Cancer
The report says both men and women who drink have a higher lifetime risk of several types of cancer.
Men who drink one drink per week have a 16 percent higher risk of colorectal cancer and a 6 percent higher risk of esophageal cancer than non-drinkers.
Heavy drinking ramps the risk up: men who consume three drinks per day (21 per week) have a threefold higher risk of esophageal cancer. Women who have one alcoholic drink per week face a 5 percent higher risk of cancers of the throat, esophagus, and larynx compared with non-drinkers.
When women drank three drinks per day (21 per week), their risk of these cancers rose dramatically.
The report says, “The risk of alcohol-related cancers is significantly higher in women.”
The authors explain that alcohol promotes mutations that make cells more likely to become cancerous. The body metabolizes alcohol into acetaldehyde, which the International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies as a carcinogen.
Heart Disease
About 25 years ago, some studies suggested moderate alcohol consumption could benefit heart health. Since then, that conclusion has been debated.
ICCPUD analyzed data on ischemic heart disease (which affects about 13 million Americans). They found men who drink two drinks a day have about the same risk as non-drinkers; the same is true for women who drink one drink a day.
The authors suggested obesity, poor diet, and physical inactivity have a larger impact on ischemic heart disease risk than alcohol consumption.
The report also found light to moderate drinkers have a lower risk of stroke, possibly because alcohol thins the blood and reduces the chance a clot reaches the brain.
Men and women who drink one drink per week have a 10 percent lower risk of stroke than non-drinkers.
But drinking two drinks per day (14 per week) increases stroke risk by about 8 percent for both sexes.
Injuries
The authors confirmed that drinking alcohol increases the likelihood of both unintentional and intentional injuries. The ICCPUD report shows men who drink one drink per week have a 4 percent higher risk of unintentional injuries and a 3 percent higher risk of traffic accidents than non-drinkers.
Participants who drank three drinks per day (21 per week) had a threefold higher risk of unintentional injuries.
Women who drank one drink per week showed no significant increase in injury or traffic accident risk. But women who drank three drinks per day (21 per week) had a 117 percent higher risk of injury.
