Research suggests only drinking half a unit of alcohol a day

[quisquose]

Authors were being paid by both The British Heart Foundation and the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.

 

My reading of it seemed to suggest that this massive reduction of average intake would save or delay 3% (or due to confidence limits ... maybe as low as 1.5%) of partially alcohol related deaths.

 

When the government originally looked at recommending units of intake, they were aware of the risks involved in recommending limits that were so far below the norm that people just ignore them.

The current recommendations have very little scientific justification, but are at a level where some people think they can use them as personal guidelines.

 

I believe that this paper is largely academic, based on sets of data that have debatable value on one hand (household questionnaires on average consumption) and limited causal relationship on the other.

 

It does have value in looking at the overall situation, but completely falls down when the authors recommend the government to adopt this intake of 5g/day as their guideline.

 

My bold.

 

I agree. The research undertaken was a "macro-simulation model", and any conclusions from a computer model should be limited to how further research should be undertaken. Yet here is the final paragraph of the published paper:

 

CONCLUSIONS

Our modelling suggests that the optimum level of reduced chronic disease mortality in England would be achieved at an average alcohol consumption level of around 5 g/day, which should be taken into account in the formulation of health guidance. It is likely that government recommendations would need to be set at a much lower level than the current ‘low-risk’ drinking guidelines in order to achieve this level.

 

Recommending government action, rather than further research, shows that the motivations of the people behind the research were political and not scientific.

 

Add to that the fact that the research does not compensate for other factors such as diet and exercise, and that other research has suggested that there are actually health benefits in drinking alcohol in moderation, and I think I can safely have that glass of wine with my fish supper this evening.

[PeteMorris]

What complete tosh this is.....Hic!......where did I put that drink?

 

There's rarely a week or even a day goes by where some crackpot survey discover that this is good for you, or that is bad or whatever......Ban pollsters I say.....they're contradictory and misleading!