New research: After decades of “healthy moderation,” alcohol is poisonous again
Like added sugars, a glass of wine a day is back on the chopping block.
“From a public health perspective, reducing per capita alcohol consumption saves lives, full stop,” reports Slate. “One team of scientists computed a ‘cigarette-equivalent of population cancer harm’ and found that in terms of lifetime cancer risk, drinking a bottle of wine a week is like, for men, smoking five cigarettes or, for women, 10 cigarettes a week. Almost 4 percent of cancers diagnosed worldwide in 2020 were due to drinking, according to the WHO.”
After presenting a lot of damning research, however, Slate likens moderate alcohol consumption to eating cake or getting into a car. As a biased teetotaler, I disagree with this justification for two reasons: 1) You shouldn’t eat cake on a daily basis; 2) You have a .001 chance of dying in a car, according to simple math provided by the CDC and the 7.8 billion people that live in the world. Alcohol related deaths are several times higher than that, so it’s not the best comparison.
Either way, it’s good to know the guy who invented “a glass of wine a day is healthy” was a wine seller who tricked a lot of people into thinking it actually was. It’s not. The latest research bares this out.