The debate over whether a glass of wine a day is good or bad has been with us for more than half a century. In fact, in the 1960s, the “cardioprotective” character of wine became something widely championed in the medical community, and it became almost an identity factor in countries like France, explaining the country’s iron health, despite consuming butter not tomorrow. available.

Over the years, despite the manipulation of interested companies, this idea has been losing ground and it has been reiterated a lot when we talk about alcohol consumption that there are no safe amounts. Now, a macro study published in one of the world’s most prestigious medical journals puts the issue back on the table. What if a daily glass of wine is healthy (for some)?

What did we discover? Researchers analyzed 22 health indicators (ranging from cardiovascular problems or cancer to more ‘weird’ things like traffic accidents) of more than a billion people aged 15 to 95 from 204 different countries. The data spanned over three decades (from 1990 to 2020) and, as in previous studies, the healthy amount of alcohol that could be consumed was expected to be zero.

It was the same for those under 40, but something strange happened for the older ones. The data showed that in some people over the age of 40, consuming small amounts of alcohol (one to two glasses of wine a day) may have some benefits on cardiovascular health or diabetes.

How is it possible for alcohol to have anything good? According to the researchers, the strongest explanation they have so far seems to be that ethanol can increase HDL (the so-called good cholesterol) production and strengthen the endothelium. Two things that come in handy for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. On the contrary, alcohol continues to be a problem by increasing the risk of other diseases such as different cancers or traffic accidents before they go any further.

Discussion is served. In the Western world (and especially in Spain because of the weight of the wine industry), alcohol is a controversial topic. On the one hand, we have been collecting information about how dangerous alcohol is for our body for years. On the other hand, we found that this knowledge did not affect his social prestige very much (alcoholism, yes; but in reality, it never had prestige).

What will we do now?. It’s one of the studies The Lancet has brought today that will bring a lot of tails because it’s easily misunderstood. First of all, because the same authors do not recommend drinking alcohol to prevent illness. In fact, data from the study show that the vast majority of people studied (approximately 1.3 billion in fact) consume harmful amounts of alcohol, and overall it not only has any health benefits, but worsens it. . This calls for extreme caution when making individual decisions on the subject and brings back to the table the complexity of everything surrounding health communication.

Image | Elle Hughes