Scientists Just Debunked Decades of Research About Alcohol Consumption

New research has found that moderate drinking isn’t, in fact, better for your health than abstaining from alcohol altogether. 

In the past, many have found comfort in the countless studies that support moderate drinking habits as perfectly healthy. However, a recent meta-analysis has shed light on the flaws of such research—which might explain why so many alcohol studies seem conflicting.

The article, published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, reviewed 107 previous studies on drinking habits and longevity and came to a few key conclusions. 

Most importantly: they found that “studies controlling for smoking and/or socioeconomic status had significantly reduced mortality risks for low-volume drinkers.” In other words, studies with better methods found no health benefits from moderate drinking.

They also pointed to a few major flaws in past research. For one, alcohol-favoring studies often compared the health of moderate drinkers to sick yet sober individuals, swaying the results in favor of alcohol consumers. Past researchers also failed to consider that many of the sober individuals in these studies quit drinking due to medical issues, thus bringing down the overall health of said group.

Undoubtedly, argued the new paper’s authors, this misleading research would work in favor of the alcohol industry.

“It’s been a propaganda coup for the alcohol industry to propose that moderate use of their product lengthens people’s lives,” said Tim Stockwell, the first author on the study, from the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria.

Stockwell added that the idea of moderate drinking being healthy “has impacted national drinking guidelines, estimates of alcohol’s burden of disease worldwide and has been an impediment to effective policymaking on alcohol and public health.”

“Estimates of the health benefits from alcohol have been exaggerated while its harms have been underestimated in most previous studies,” Stockwell continued.

He said that’s largely because many of the “sober” individuals in these weaker studies were former drinkers. The stronger research only includes truly sober people who do not have a history of alcohol consumption.

“We know people give up or cut down on drinking when they become unwell and frailer with age,” Stockwell said. “The most biased studies included many people who had stopped or cut down their drinking for health reasons in the comparison group so making people well enough to continue drinking appear even healthier.”

Consuming alcohol has many risks, from liver disease to stroke. In fact, even moderate drinking can increase your chance of developing heart disease and some cancers, according to the Mayo Clinic. To fully avoid its dangers, you’d have to abstain from drinking altogether—but nobody’s really drinking in the first place because it seems safe, are they?