The New Belief About Moderate Alcohol Consumption

By Kevin Kolodziejski 

Early in my teaching career, it seemed that whenever the topic of alcohol consumption came up inside the confines of the faculty room, the same colleague would solemnly say, “Lips that touch wine shall never touch mine.”

He’s not, however, the second-great-grandson of a mover and shaker in the long-gone local chapter of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union repeating the long-held family credo. Only a bit of a booze hound who was trying to get a laugh out of us all. Because as long as you didn’t operate an automobile afterwards (maybe heavy machinery or a chainsaw, too), over-consuming the Devil’s brew in the mid-80s was still considered a laughing matter to many.

Sharing in the Laughter, Not the Alcohol

Although I always laughed along with the other teachers, it’s germane to this story to report that I never drank with them, nor my biking buddies in the decades that followed. Not because I’m antisocial or a descendant of Carrie Nation — that hatchet-wielder who destroyed more than one saloon — but because I was and still am driven by the dual desires that drove me as a teenager: to be a notable athlete and a non-conformist. So when my high school teammates were downing a few Schaefer’s, the cheap local brew (“The one to have if you’re having more than one,”according to the commercial), I was saying, “No thank you.” Something that was easy to keep saying in adulthood once I learned how easily calories from alcohol convert to body fat.

And I kept saying, “No thanks,” my entire adult life. Even at cycling gatherings when someone would ask, ”Why not?” and add that his doctor says a drink every now and then is good for you. I heard that a lot, let me tell you, but I hear it no more. That’s because most of the recent studies and a second look into most of the old ones suggest moderate drinking does not benefit your health.

While a doctor-lead organization or two might have flip-flopped before the World Heart Federation, they did so in 2022. “Contrary to popular opinion,” the WHF declaration reads, “alcohol is not good for the heart.”

The Reasons for the Alcohol-in-Moderation Flip-Flop

In the January 2023 Time magazine article,“Is There Really No Safe Mount of Drinking?”, Jamie Ducharme explains a reexamination of the aforementioned studies had not accounted for why the subjects did not drink. Such an omission devalues the research by creating a phenomenon called abstainer bias.

To understand abstainer bias, consider this simplified scenario. Researchers recruit 100 people — 50 who drink alcohol moderately and 50 who don’t drink at all — assess their overall health, and find the moderate drinkers’ health to be superior. But if the research never takes into account that 25 of the 50 who don’t drink don’t drink because they’re ailing and using a medication that prohibits them from doing so, the results don’t mean much. What does, however, is that newer studies have not only taken this into account but also linked moderate drinking to the acceleration of genetic aging, shrinkage of the brain, and the increase in the risk of cardiovascular disease.

It’s hard to raise a glass to any of that.

Ducharme also notes the World Health Organization’s flip-flop in 2023 stresses the carcinogenicity of alcohol and that half of all alcohol-related cancers diagnosed in Europe are caused by light or moderate drinking. Moreover, the doctor giving WHO’s statement, Dr. Carina Ferreira-Borges, added, “We cannot talk about a so-called safe level of alcohol use. It doesn’t matter how much you drink — the risk to the drinker’s health starts from the first drop of any alcoholic beverage.”

But No Formal Flip-Flops in the U.S. Yet

Despite such worldwide declarations, health organizations in the U.S. have not yet followed suit.  It’s not for lack of evidence, though, according to John Callaci, a researcher with Loyola University Chicago’s Alcohol Research Program. It’s more likely a combination of the alcohol industry’s tremendous political clout along with the fact that the U.S. just isn’t as proactive as many other countries when it comes to public-health issues. But what’s really at issue here is not proactivity or public health, but reactivity and personal health.

Which means you need to be well aware of what the most recent research and a review of the old suggests. All of which is nicely summarized by Dr. Denise Hien, director of the Rutgers Center of Alcohol and Substance Use Studies, in the aforementioned Time magazine article.

She says that while moderate drinking may not definitively harm health, no one should do so to enhance it.

Something Else to Consider

Even though we have never met, I see you as a cycling buddy, so I want you to know the gist of what three of mine have shared with me throughout the years — and always when other cyclists were not within earshot. That a few months ago they feared they were imbibing a bit too heavily in their preferred after-ride beverage, so they cut back. One guy cut out alcohol entirely.

And in every case, these guys felt better, lost weight, and rode better.

---

Kevin Kolodziejski began his writing career in earnest in 1989. Since then he’s written a weekly health and fitness column and his articles have appeared in magazines such as “MuscleMag,” “Ironman,” “Vegetarian Times,” and “Bicycle Guide.” He has Bachelor and Masters degrees in English from DeSales and Kutztown Universities.

A competitive cyclist for more than 30 years, Kevin won two Pennsylvania State Time Trial championships in his 30’s, the aptly named Pain Mountain Time Trial 4 out of 5 times in his 40s, two more state TT’s in his 50’s, and the season-long Pennsylvania 40+ BAR championship at 43.