In contradiction to the increasingly mainstream claim that any amount of alcohol is bad for one's health, a new study suggests that moderate drinking isn't just safe but could be healthy — with some very specific caveats.
Published in the journal Medicine, this new analysis out of China's Chongqing Medical University examined more than 500,000 records from the United Kingdom's massive BioBank database and found that having a moderate amount of booze drinks per week is not only not that bad for you, but that it could have protective health benefits as well.
Specifically, the researchers found that men can safely drink up to 11 total grams of alcohol — defined as red wine, white wine or champagne, spirits, beer, and fortified wine — per day and women can have 10 grams per day without harming their health. That roughly translates to about one-half of an alcoholic beverage of any type.
Broken down by week and alcohol type, the advice is even more stratified as the research suggests men can safely quaff seven glasses of red wine per week and that women can have six, that men can have five glasses of white wine or champagne while women can have four, and that four or fewer glasses of fortified wine per week would be safe for both men and women.
The Chongqing researchers used BioBank records from 502,490 participants who were asked subjects a battery of questions about their weekly alcohol consumption, broken down by type, and health issues.
While there tended to be a U-shaped curve for cardiovascular disease and health — which means that there were greater instances of both on the extremes of not drinking and what is termed as "severe" drinking — there was an inverse association with chronic kidney disease.
By breaking down by alcohol type, the Chinese health experts concluded that wine products in general seemed to be healthier for both the heart and the kidneys than beer and spirits.
"These alcoholic beverages under safe doses exhibited a protective effect against conditions like diabetes, depression, dementia, epilepsy, liver cirrhosis, and other digestive diseases," the paper reads, "while [they] didn’t increase the risk of cancer."
Naturally, a statistical analysis like the one undergirding this research is by nature going to generalize something as highly individual as personal health. For instance, although diet, weight, and smoking status were taken into consideration in the analysis, they weren't part of the final conclusions, which likely would paint a different picture especially when looking at the risk of heart disease.
Overall, however, it's a fascinating take on moderate drinking that doesn't urge the unlikely abstinence that's often hard to achieve in the real world.
More on alcohol: People on Ozempic Find That They're Drinking and Smoking Less Too
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