Researchers from two federal organizations reviewed the science on moderate drinking—and reached some different conclusions about how it affects health. Certain health problems — like depression or anxiety, sleep problems, and chronic pain — can put you at a higher risk for alcohol use disorder. People who have alcohol use disorder are also more likely to experience these health problems.
About Moderate Alcohol Use
The most frequently cited definition of moderate drinking comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which defines it as consuming one drink a day or fewer for biological women and two or fewer for men. The agency considers a single drink to be a 12-ounce beer, a 6-ounce glass of wine, 8 ounces of malt liquor, or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor, the equivalent of a shot. The weekly limit is seven drinks for women and 14 for men. It’s safe to say that alcohol is both a tonic and a poison. Moderate drinking seems to be good for the heart and circulatory system, and probably protects against type 2 diabetes and gallstones.
Learn new skills to help you change your drinking patterns.
Much of the research has focused on red wine, which contains antioxidants called polyphenols. Researchers have found an association between a polyphenol in red wine called resveratrol and a reduced risk of heart disease, primarily due to its anti-inflammatory effects. The benefits and risks of moderate drinking change over a lifetime. In general, risks exceed benefits until middle age, when cardiovascular disease begins to account for an increasingly large share of the burden of disease and death.
For decades, studies suggested that moderate alcohol intake could protect the heart, reduce diabetes risk or even help you live longer. But newer research tells a different story, and it’s left many people confused. You might think having a few drinks regularly is harmless, but even consuming alcohol in moderation carries some risks. Alcohol blocks the absorption of folate and inactivates folate in the blood and tissues. It’s possible that this interaction may be how alcohol consumption increases the risk of breast, colon, and other cancers.
- The active ingredient in alcoholic beverages, a simple molecule called ethanol, affects the body in many different ways.
- Another study found that one component in red wine may protect the brain from stroke damage.
- In 2012, results of a study of swine with high cholesterol levels suggested that moderate consumption of both vodka and wine may reduce cardiovascular risk, with wine offering greater protection.
- For example, a 12-ounce bottle of beer has about 150 calories.
Sleep and mental health: What the science says
- If you don’t have insurance, you may still be able to get free or low-cost help for alcohol misuse.
- Given the disparate findings, it’s understandable to be confused about the potential toll that moderate drinking can take on your body.
- While the idea of abstaining completely may feel daunting, there’s a growing cultural shift toward mindful drinking, or not drinking.
- Drinking alcohol in excess can negatively impact your health, including almost every part of your body.
- There is also some evidence that genes influence how alcohol affects the cardiovascular system.
- The studies, however, had some major flaws, including that people’s drinking was generally categorized only by their current behavior.
Drinking even moderate amounts of alcohol may raise your risk for certain health problems. For example, the risk of breast cancer among women increases at less than 1 drink in a day compared to women who don’t drink at all. During pregnancy, drinking alcohol can raise the risk of miscarriage, stillbirth, premature (early) birth, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), as well as fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). A recent successful effort in the U.S. to launch an international study was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Although the proposal was peer-reviewed and initial participants had been randomized to drink in moderation or to abstain, post hoc the NIH decided to stop the trial due to internal policy concerns. The first report, released by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in December, determined that moderate drinking is linked to fewer heart attack and stroke deaths.
Excessive alcohol use includes:
A standard drink is 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits. But experts caution that even within these guidelines, individual risk varies. Factors including age, genetics, body size and existing health conditions all influence how alcohol affects a person.
Effects of short-term alcohol use
It directly influences the stomach, brain, heart, gallbladder, and liver. It affects levels of lipids (cholesterol and triglycerides) and insulin in the blood, as well as inflammation and coagulation. Whether it’s a glass of red wine with dinner or a celebratory cocktail on the weekend, drinking in moderation has long been considered not only socially acceptable but also perhaps even healthy. The initial contact points — mouth, throat, esophagus and stomach — are most vulnerable, which is why these areas show some of the strongest links to alcohol-related cancers.
Loose use of the terms “moderate” and “a drink” has fueled some of the ongoing debate about alcohol’s impact on health. Recent research has also shown that adults over the age of 50 or 60 show signs of impairment at lower blood alcohol concentrations than younger people. They are also more likely to already be living with chronic diseases, and to be taking prescription medications that might interact poorly with alcohol. Because women metabolize alcohol differently than men, and tend to have smaller bodies, the same amount of alcohol can have a stronger effect for them. Alcohol consumption has been linked to cancers of the breast, colon and rectum, liver, esophagus, voice box, throat, mouth, and probably the pancreas, according to the American Cancer Society.
It is also addictive, especially for people with a family history of alcoholism. Links between alcohol and mental health have also become clearer in recent years. Even in people who are not struggling with alcohol use disorder, drinking alcohol can affect other psychiatric conditions. Stafford and his colleagues said the choice to tip back a beer or forgo alcohol — like many lifestyle decisions — should involve weighing the risks and benefits of your behaviors. But they think the public should be made more aware of those risks, which include an increased risk of cancer from drinking moderate facts about moderate drinking amounts of alcohol.
It also found a small but significant risk of breast cancer—but said there wasn’t enough evidence to connect moderate drinking with other cancers. It’s possible that the fast-acting enzyme breaks down alcohol before it can have a beneficial effect on HDL and clotting factors. Interestingly, these differences in the ADH1C gene do not influence the risk of heart disease among people who don’t drink alcohol. This adds strong indirect evidence that alcohol itself reduces heart disease risk. Drinking too much alcohol too frequently is unhealthy and can lead to liver disease, weight gain, and alcohol use disorder (AUD).
While alcohol does not pose a risk to health on its own, abusing can lead to liver disease and other fatal conditions. When you stop drinking alcohol entirely, even as a moderate drinker, you allow your body and mind a chance to heal. However, it may take some time before you feel like yourself again. But again, because the research is observational, it’s difficult to know how moderate drinking truly affects heart health. If drinking causes problems in your life, you may have alcohol use disorder (sometimes called alcoholism).
The studies, however, had some major flaws, including that people’s drinking was generally categorized only by their current behavior. Excessive alcohol use can harm people who drink and those around them. You and your community can take steps to improve everyone’s health and quality of life.
Stanford experts discuss the health implications of moderate alcohol consumption and how the guidelines have changed. Some past studies had suggested that moderate drinking might be good for your health. More studies now show that there aren’t health benefits of moderate drinking compared to not drinking. Learn up-to-date facts and statistics on alcohol consumption and its impact in the United States and globally. Explore topics related to alcohol misuse and treatment, underage drinking, the effects of alcohol on the human body, and more.
If you think you or a loved one may have developed a dependence or AUD from binge drinking, consider reaching out to a physician or therapist for help. While these studies can give researchers an idea about how different habits may affect specific parts of health, they can only establish correlation—not causation. This information on drinking in moderation was adapted from materials from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. If you don’t have insurance, you may still be able to get free or low-cost help for alcohol misuse. Find a health center near you and ask about alcohol misuse screening and counseling. Doctors can treat it with talk therapy, medicine, or both.
Whether or not to drink alcohol, especially for “medicinal purposes,” requires careful balancing of these benefits and risks. The benefits of moderate drinking aren’t limited to the heart. In the Nurses’ Health Study, the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, and other studies, gallstones 40, 41 and type 2 diabetes 32, 42, 43 were less likely to occur in moderate drinkers than in non-drinkers.
