A consortium of health researchers has said that alcohol intake however little increases the risk of health problem that could lead to death.<\/p>\n
The team in a recent report said even an occasional glass of wine or beer increases the risk of health problems and dying, according to a major study on drinking in 195 nations that attributes 2.8 million premature deaths worldwide each year to alcohol.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no safe level of alcohol,\u201d said Max Griswold, a researcher at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, Washington and lead author for a consortium of more than 500 experts, including some Nigerians.<\/p>\n
Despite recent research showing that light-to-moderate drinking reduces heart disease, the new study found that alcohol use is more likely than not to do harm.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe protective effect of alcohol was offset by the risks,\u201d Griswold told AFP in summarising the results, published in medical journal The Lancet on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, the health risks associated with alcohol rose in line with the amount consumed each day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Compared to abstinence, imbibing one \u201cstandard drink\u201d \u2014 10 grammes of alcohol, equivalent to a small beer, glass of wine or shot of spirits \u2014 per day, for example, ups the odds of developing at least one of two dozen health problems by about half-a-percent, the researchers reported.<\/p>\n
Looked at one way, that seems like a small increment: 914 out of 100,000 teetotallers will encounter those problems, compared to 918 people who imbibe seven times per week.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut at the global level, that additional risk of 0.5 percent among (once-a-day) drinkers corresponds to about 100,000 additional deaths each year,\u201d said senior author Emmanuela Gakidou, a professor at the University of Washington and a director at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are excess deaths, in other words, that could be avoided,\u201d she told AFP.<\/p>\n
The risk climbs in a steep \u201cJ-curve\u201d, the study found.<\/p>\n
An average of two drinks per day, for example, translated into a 7.0 percent hike in disease and injury compared to those who opt for abstinence.<\/p>\n
With five \u201cunits\u201d of alcohol per day, the likelihood of serious consequences jumps by 37 percent.<\/p>\n
The \u201cless is better, none is best\u201d finding jibes with the World Health Organization\u2019s long-standing position, but is at odds with many national guidelines, especially in the developed world.<\/p>\n
Britain\u2019s health authority, for example, suggests not exceeding 14 drinks per week \u201cto keep health risks from alcohol to a low level\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is always a lag between the publication of new evidence and the modification and adoption of revised guidelines,\u201d said Gakidou, who admitted to being an \u201coccasional drinker\u201d herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe evidence shows what the evidence shows, and I \u2014 like 2.4 billion other people on the planet that also consume alcohol \u2014 need to take it seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n
Overall, drinking was the seventh leading risk factor for premature death and disease in 2016, accounting for just over two percent of deaths in women and nearly seven percent in men.<\/p>\n
The top six killers are high blood pressure, smoking, low-birth weight and premature delivery, high blood sugar (diabetes), obesity and pollution.<\/p>\n
But in the 15-49 age bracket, alcohol emerged as the most lethal factor, responsible for more than 12 percent of deaths among men, the study found.<\/p>\n
The main causes of alcohol-related deaths in this age group were tuberculosis, road injuries and \u201cself-harm\u201d, mainly suicide.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe now understand that alcohol is one of the major causes of death in the world today,\u201d said Lancet Editor Richard Horton. \u201cWe need to act now. We need to act urgently to prevent these millions of deaths. And we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
This study used 694 data sources on individual and population-level alcohol consumption, along with 592 prospective and retrospective studies on the risk of alcohol use. More than 500 GBD collaborators, such as researchers, academics, and others from more than 40 nations contributed to the study, according to Max Griswold, senior researcher and lead author.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the largest collected evidence base to date, our study makes the relationship between health and alcohol clear \u2013 drinking causes substantial health loss, in myriad ways, all over the world,\u201d Griswold said.<\/p>\n
In 2016, eight of the leading 10 countries with lowest death rates attributable to alcohol use among 15- to 49-year-olds were in the Middle East: Kuwait, Iran, Palestine, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, and Syria. The other two were Maldives and Singapore.<\/p>\n
Conversely, seven of the leading 10 countries with highest death rates were in the Baltic, Eastern European, or Central Asian regions, specifically Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, Mongolia, Latvia, and Kazakhstan. The other three were Lesotho, Burundi, and Central African Republic.<\/p>\n
King\u2019s College London professor Robyn Burton, who did not take part in the study, described it as \u201cthe most comprehensive estimate of the global burden of alcohol use to date.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A consortium of health researchers has said that alcohol intake however little increases the risk of health problem that could lead to death. The team in a recent report said even an occasional glass of wine or beer increases the risk of health problems and dying, according to a major study on drinking in 195 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n