Despite studies suggesting alcohol can help stave off everything from the common cold to heart disease to cancer, it shouldn’t be used as a preventative measure, an analysis in the journal Addiction concludes.
Hans Olav Fekjaer, a psychiatrist in Oslo, Norway and author of the article, cautions that an association between alcohol and health does not prove there is a positive cause-effect relationship.
“Alcohol's ability to prevent diseases should probably not be considered as an established fact," he says.
Fekjaer, along with other doctors and researchers, analyzed numerous studies on the effects of beer, wine and spirits on 20 diseases. They found multiple reasons to question the notion that moderate drinking is responsible for reduced health risk. Primary among them is that the majority of the studies were observational, meaning it’s difficult to separate the effects of alcohol from other lifestyle practices, including diet and exercise.
They also note that even when a study shows a causal relationship—as some research linking alcohol to a lower risk of heart disease does—there are other possible interpretations, including lifestyle and fewer risk factors not controlled in the studies.
Light and moderate drinkers are likely not hurting their health, but the research should not be viewed as encouragement to start drinking, the article suggests. In fact, it concludes: “Altogether, the evidence for alcohol’s ability to prevent diseases is considerably weaker than that for alcohol causing several kinds of harm.”