Sarah Wakeman

And scientists would lump people into sort of non-drinkers versus light drinkers, moderate drinkers, or heavy drinkers.

And what they were finding is that people who were drinking even up to the moderate level were actually doing better than the people who weren't drinking at all.

And so that was where that concept that drinking is good for your health came from.

And so people talk about this like J-shaped curve, meaning that moderate drinkers actually have lower risks of health problems.

And then it's really only when you start drinking very high levels that you start having more risk of health problems than people who don't drink at all.

What they realize is wrong with that is that in the people who don't drink at all, many of those people are not drinking because they're actually really unhealthy for another reason.

Like they might have heart failure and they like don't want to drink because they don't want it to mix with their medication.

Or they might have had a history of alcohol use disorder and they're actually in recovery.

So they've already had some damage from alcohol and they are not drinking because of that.

And so when you change the reference group, you actually make the sort of group that you compare people to, to people who very rarely drink.

So it's not that they're not drinkers at all, but they drink, you know, very, very light levels.

Then you start to see that those like health benefits of alcohol go away, especially if you look across all conditions.

Yes.

I would never say drinking alcohol is good for your health.

That doesn't mean that drinking at what we call low-risk levels can't be a part of a healthy lifestyle.

So it's a slight shift that like don't fool yourself into thinking that drinking that glass of wine is like going to exercise for 30 minutes.

Like it's not something that's going to promote your health.

I think of it more like having dessert, eating bacon, going out in the sun.

There are risks associated with all those activities.

It doesn't mean that I would say you can never do any of that, but you need to understand what the risks are and then make choices for yourself.