A Giant Buzz-Kill Of Abstainer Bias

Photo: Kelsey Knight, Unsplash

That Glass of Wine Probably Isn’t Medicine After All:

You’ve probably heard it countless times: “An apple glass of wine a day keeps the doctor away.”

It’s a comforting thought that’s been repeated in headlines and dinner conversations for decades.

But what if we’ve been looking at the evidence, and the advice, all wrong?

A new and somewhat contrarian analysis from the University of Victoria may have just rewritten our understanding of alcohol and health.

And the results might make you rethink that daily nightcap.

No, this is not just some “Dry January” clickbait, either…

The Short Answer:

• Previous studies that suggested health benefits from low-moderate drinking were flawed.
• “Retired” drinkers had been previously classified as lifelong-abstainers.
• U.Vic Researchers analyzed 100+ studies covering almost 5 million subjects.
• Earlier research accidentally made non-drinkers look less healthy than they were.
• When comparing true lifelong non-drinkers to moderate ones, the benefits disappeared.
• Better-quality studies show at least 17% increased health risks even at moderate levels.
• Even “The French Paradox” about red wine’s benefits needs a serious reality check.
• The Surgeon General now recommends warning labels on alcohol.
• There is no “safe” level of alcohol consumption.
• Women face higher risks at lower consumption levels than men.
• Even low-moderate drinking shows no health benefits compared to abstaining.
• The good news: reducing intake can help lower these risks.
• The UVic team created an online calculator to estimate it at Know Alcohol CA.
• You do not have to be Canadian to use it, though.

Read on to find out the details…

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Not to be a “Dry January” Buzz-Killington,

But imagine running a health study where you accidentally counted retired nuclear power-plant specialists as “never exposed to radiation”.

That’s basically what happened in many “alcohol is healthy” studies.

-They lumped-in former drinkers who quit (often for health reasons), with people who never drank at all.

This created what scientists call an “abstainer bias”, making current drinkers look healthier by comparison.

It’s like comparing the newer power-plant techs with 1-10 years in, to a supposedly “baseline healthy/unexposed” group that includes those guys who “retired” for one reason … or another.

Tends to muddy the waters a bit, eh?

So, researchers at the University of Victoria in Canada took a fresh look at this issue with booze.

(concerning it, not while drinking it; as far as we know.)

They chose to do an overview spanning more than 100 studies that followed nearly 5 million subjects over time.

When they filtered out the misleading data and focused on higher-quality studies that properly tracked drinking histories, the picture changed significantly.

And the updated numbers tell the real story vs. that more-accurate baseline.
In the most reliable studies:

• Low-volume drinkers showed no longevity or health advantages.
• Medium-volume drinkers faced at least 17% increased health risks.
• Higher-volume drinkers showed significantly elevated mortality risks that were as high as +51%.

The research team was particularly careful in their methodology.

Because “Correlation Isn’t Causation”, but you don’t even have that if you’re working with bad data!

They focused on studies that:

• Started with younger participants under age 55 at the start.
• Followed people long enough to see real health impacts.
• Properly filtered different types of non-drinkers.
• Tracked drinking patterns over at least 30 days for a clearer habit-picture.

This attention to detail helped them avoid the “sick quitter” problem that plagued earlier research.

That’s what made the abstainer group look artificially unhealthy before now.

There may be more alcohol vs. health study switcheroos still out there after this.

Remember “The French Paradox”?

It was the idea that somehow red wine explained why French people stayed healthy and slim despite rich foods?

That theory, popularized in the 1990s, probably in a Nora Ephron movie with either Tom Hanks or Meg Ryan, now looks like it may have missed some other factors in French health and mixed-up others.

And unless they are hidden somewhere in The Sam Parr French Paradox Superpost, perhaps our pal Yazemeenah Rossi can help us figure them out?

To emphasize the potential issues even more, we should mention the U.S. Surgeon General recently called for warning labels on alcohol, highlighting its role in at least seven types of The Big C.

Here’s how alcohol can damage your cells and contribute to bad outcomes:

1. It breaks down into acetaldehyde, which directly damages DNA.
2. Creates oxidative stress, damaging cells and increasing inflammation.
3. Disrupts hormone levels, particularly impacting breast health risks for women.
4. Helps other carcinogens enter cells more easily.

The research team put it plainly. -There is no “completely safe” level of alcohol consumption.

But before you panic, remember that risk exists on a spectrum.

This isn’t just about telling people to quit drinking immediately.

It’s about having better information to make your own decisions.

Here are some practical takeaways:

• Even low-level drinking (1x/week – 2x/day[men]) showed no health benefits.
• Women face higher risks at lower consumption levels. (2 drinks/day)
• There’s no evidence supporting alcohol as a health tonic.
• Different types of alcohol may carry different risks.
• Personal health history should probably guide decisions.
• The good news is: Reducing intake can help lower the risks.

To help you visualize some numbers, the U.Vic research team created an online calculator which is over at Know Alcohol CA.

And although its estimates seem a little aggressive when I tested, it does help people better understand their risk levels based on consumption.

As our understanding of alcohol’s effects evolves, we might see more changes in Public Health recommendations.

The current trend is toward greater awareness of risks, particularly around serious disease like The Big C.

Whether you choose to quit is up to you, but the research strongly suggests being more thoughtful about consumption amount & frequency.

While this news might not be what many wanted to hear, it’s important information for making informed choices.

As Dr. Tim Stockwell, one of the study’s authors, notes: The belief in alcohol as a health tonic appears to have been built on flawed research (and some unfortunately comforting old myths).

• Source: EurekAlert
• More Coverage: U.Vic | HHS
• Source Studies:
• JSAD – Why Do Only Some Cohort Studies Find Health Benefits From Low-Volume Alcohol Use? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Study Characteristics That May Bias Mortality Risk Estimates
• JAMA – Association Between Daily Alcohol Intake and Risk of All-Cause Mortality A Systematic Review and Meta-analyses