2024-09-06 05:42:15
Addiction, liver failure, cancer and early death: the list of damage caused by alcohol is long. The risk is apparently not only high for heavy drinkers.
A glass of wine with dinner or a beer after work: alcohol is part of everyday life for many people. But not everyone is aware that even small amounts – from the first sip – are harmful to health.
Older people in particular should be careful and limit their alcohol consumption, as a new study shows. According to the study, the risk of death increases significantly for people over 60 who drink alcohol regularly.
Researchers led by Dr. Rosario Ortolá from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid evaluated data from more than 135,000 people as part of a large study recently published in the “JAMA Network Open”. They were all at least 60 years old, lived in Great Britain and had made their health data available to the British Biobank database.
Overall, the subjects were observed over a period of 12 years. The researchers compared the data of occasional drinkers (less than two alcoholic drinks per week) with the data of people who drank at least some alcohol on average every day and were therefore considered heavy drinkers.
The result of the analysis: people who consumed alcohol daily had a significantly increased risk of early death, especially from cancer.
Specifically, the group of heavy drinkers had, compared to the occasional drinkers,
According to the study, the high-risk group included men who consumed an average of almost three alcoholic drinks per day or more, and women who consumed an average of about one and a half drinks per day or more.
But even more moderate drinking habits (an average of one alcoholic drink or less per day) were associated with an 11 percent increased risk of early death and death from cancer. According to the researchers, such consumption behavior is likely consistent with the behavior of millions of adults worldwide.
In Germany, the German Nutrition Society (DGE) has also confirmed in a recent position paper the new research findings that any amount of alcohol is harmful. According to this, there is “no potentially health-promoting and safe amount of alcohol for safe consumption”. The DGE advises everyone, not just minors, pregnant women and breastfeeding women, not to drink any alcohol at all.