translated from Spanish: Moderate consumption of alcohol also involves health risks, according to the study

against what many people think, also the intake of small quantities of alcohol poses risks to health, according to a study of sobr (e) global consumption of alcohol and its relation with 23 diseases published in the specialist journal “The Lancet”. “Previous studies had revealed that the alcohol ingested in certain conditions has a protective effect, but we have found that the combined alcohol-related health risks increase with each dose of alcohol,” said Max Griswold, of the University of Washington, in the U.S. city of Seattle. Griswold and Emmanuela Gakidou, also of the University of Washington, teams assessed 694 studies on alcohol consumption and other 592 on health risks from drinking alcohol. Analyzed data correspond to the population aged between 15 and 95 years old in 195 countries and show that 2.8 million deaths per year worldwide are related to alcohol consumption. The specific causes of death differ according to age: in the Group of people aged between 15 and 49 years of age, the most frequent causes of death are tuberculosis, road accidents and self-inflicted injuries. After 50 years, cancer is the leading cause of death associated with alcohol consumption. Adding all age groups, 2.2 per cent of all deaths of women has to do with the consumption of alcohol, compared to 6.8% in men. Higher alcohol consumption corresponds, according to the study, men in Romania (an average of 8.2 units), Portugal and Luxembourg (7.2 units each). Among women, the highest levels were recorded in Ukraine (4.2 units), Andorra and Luxembourg (3.4 units each). The researchers compared the supposed positive effects of moderate alcohol consumption on diabetes and coronary heart disease with negative consequences. “According to our study, the relationship between alcohol consumption and the risk of cancer, injuries and infectious diseases cancels mostly women protective effect for coronary heart disease”, said Griswold. The study comes to the conclusion that the daily intake of 10 grams of alcohol increases the risk of disease related to alcohol by 0.5 per cent. 20 grams daily consumption increases this risk by seven percent.

Original source in Spanish