alcohol benefits and harms

Balancing harms and benefits of alcohol.

[Updated December 2014]

11/04/20231 http://twitter.com/pronutritionist

Reijo Laatikainen, Authorized Nutritionist, MBA http://twitter.com/pronutritionist

http://www.facebook.com/pronutritionist

Meta-analyses: Alcohol is linked to improved cardiovascular health

• Alcohol improves HDL-cholesterol by circa 0.1 mmol/L

• Alcohol also improves fibrinogen levels 0.2 mg/L

• Alcohol increases apolipoprotein A1 by 0.1 g/L

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• Alcohol decreases cardiovascular deaths by 25 %

• Alcohol decreases all cause deaths• Best effect is reached at a daily intake

of 1-2 alcohol drinks

11.04.2023Headline2

Brien et al. Meta-analysis of 44 intervention trials.

BMJ 2011; 342:d636

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Ronksley et al. Meta-analysis of 84 cohort trials. BMJ 2011; 342:d671

Benefit HarmDanaei, G., Ding, E. L., Mozaffarian, D., Taylor, B., Rehm, J., Murray, C. J., & Ezzati, M. (2009). The preventable causes of death in the united states: Comparative risk assessment of dietary, lifestyle, and metabolic risk factors. Plos Medicine, 6(4), e1000058. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000058 (Open access article)

Balance between cardiovascular and cancer plus other mortality

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The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington: Global Burden of Disease. Visualizations: http://www.healthmetricsandevaluation.org/gbd/country-profiles

CVD

Cancer

Balance between cardiovascular, cancer and other morbidity

Summary

• Alcohol is linked to improved survival from cardiovascular causes (Ronksley et al. 2011, meta-analysis on 84 cohort studies, BMJ)

• Alcohol concumption is linked to improvement of HDL-cholesterol by circa 0,1 mmol/l (Brien et al. 2011, meta-analysis on 44 intervention studies, BMJ)

• However, cardiovascular benefits should be reflected against potential harms such cancer, injuries, liver, pancreatic, mental diseases and social burden

• With current consumption figures in USA and in Finland, the harms seem to outweigh benefits in terms of deaths

(Danaei et al. 2009, IHME register 2013)

11.04.20235

Balancing harms and benefits of alcohol.

11/04/20236http://twitter.com/pronutritionist

Reijo Laatikainen, Authorized Nutritionist, MBA http://twitter.com/pronutritionist

http://www.facebook.com/pronutritionist