Report suggests moderate alcohol drinkers may live longer

Key takeaways:

• Moderate alcohol intake may also lower the risk for nonfatal heart attack or stroke.
• However, such consumption could increase the risk for breast and colorectal cancer.

According to a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, or NASEM, moderate alcohol consumption may lower the risk for death from all causes and CVD.

The findings contrast those from several prior studies but also show that moderate consumption was tied to a higher risk for adverse health outcomes like breast cancer.

Report will inform dietary guidance

The report, “Review of Evidence on Alcohol and Health,” does not offer dietary advice or recommendations. Instead, it is intended to inform the next edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans “and highlights research gaps that, if addressed, could strengthen the information available to us,” Ned Calonge, MD, MPH, chair of the Committee on the Review of Evidence on Alcohol and Health and a professor of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health, said in a NASEM press release.

He explained that the current evidence on health and alcohol “is imperfect, and conducting the research has many challenges — such as a lack of standardization for terms like ‘non-drinker’ or ‘moderate drinker’ and the possibility that people are underreporting their own alcohol consumption.”

In a systematic review, the 14-person committee evaluated recent studies assessing the relationship between eight health outcomes and moderate alcohol consumption, defined by the 2020 to 2025 dietary guidelines as two drinks a day for men and one drink a day for women.

Researchers excluded studies published before 2010, those with too few participants or those that formed a comparison group by combining people who have never been drinkers with people who do not currently drink but have in the past were excluded, according to the release.

Calonge and colleagues graded their findings with low, moderate or high certainty. Ultimately, none of the findings drew high certainty, “which is unlikely without a randomized controlled trial to include in the systematic review,” NASEM noted.

Moderate intake lowers death risk

The researchers found with moderate certainty that moderate alcohol consumption corresponded with a lower risk for all-cause and CVD-related mortality vs. no alcohol consumption.

They also concluded with low certainty that moderate alcohol intake reduced the risk for nonfatal stroke and nonfatal myocardial infarction.

However, several areas revealed negative links or insufficient evidence that ultimately led to no conclusion.

For example, Calonge and colleagues found with low certainty that changes in BMI and risk for overweight or obesity appeared similar among men who consume amounts of alcohol at any level of moderate intake, whereas the evidence for women was inconsistent.

Additionally, no conclusions could be made about the associations between weight change and moderate alcohol consumption vs. never consuming alcohol.

The researchers also concluded with:

• moderate certainty that moderate alcohol intake increased the risk for breast cancer in women compared with no alcohol consumption; and
• low certainty that higher amounts of moderate alcohol consumption are tied to a higher risk for colorectal cancer vs. lower amounts of alcohol consumption.

Similarly, the analysis showed no links between the development of Alzheimer’s disease and moderate alcohol consumption. No conclusions regarding the risk for cognitive decline and moderate vs. never or occasional alcohol consumption or the risk for dementia among those with moderate vs. no consumption or in those with higher vs. lower amounts of moderate consumption.

The release highlighted some overarching limitations observed in the research, which included abstainer bias, underreporting of alcohol consumption among participants and limitations of observational analyses.

“The report urges that all studies addressing the impacts of alcohol on human health speak to these limitations and consider including menopausal status as well as postpartum women and their infants, when possible,” NASEM said.

References:

• New report reviews evidence on moderate alcohol consumption and health impacts. Available at: https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2024/12/new-report-reviews-evidence-on-moderate-alcohol-consumption-and-health-impacts. Published Dec. 17, 2024. Accessed Dec. 20, 2024.
• Review of evidence on alcohol and health. Available at: https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/28582/review-of-evidence-on-alcohol-and-health. Accessed Dec. 210, 2024.