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The theory that a small amount of alcohol could be good for you has finally been debunked. Previous studies have shown that people who drink in moderation are less likely to die prematurely than those who drink without alcohol, and men who drink four to seven units of alcohol a week may be more likely fertile.
In addition, one or two glasses a day had previously been associated with a lower risk of stroke and heart attack, but it was never clear whether alcohol itself improved health or whether drinkers had cardiovascular problems.
A major new study from Oxford University, published in The Lancet, revealed that the more we drink, the higher our blood pressure and our risk of stroke.
The researchers collaborated with teams from Peking University and the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and analyzed the results of 500,000 men and women in China. East Asia was chosen because there is a common genetic intolerance to alcohol in these populations, where people have a red and reddish face because they do not have an enzyme that breaks down acetaldehyde.
Because the effects are obvious and unrelated to other risk factors such as lifestyle and smoking, genetic variants could be used to study the causal effects of alcohol use, the researchers said.
Read more: There is no harmless alcohol, according to a new world report
The subjects were followed for 10 years and more than 160,000 people had one of two genetic variants that significantly reduced their alcohol consumption to almost zero per day.
People with reduced alcohol consumption also had low blood pressure and a reduced risk of stroke. Overall, researchers found that the risk of having a stroke increased by 35% with four alcoholic beverages a day and that moderate alcohol consumption did not present any benefit to health .
"Moderate alcohol consumption for stroke has no protective effect and even moderate alcohol consumption increases the chances of having a stroke," said the co-author of the study. study, Professor Zhengming Chen. "The results of the heart attack were less well defined, so we plan to collect more evidence."
Participants in the study drank less than men, with only 2% of them drinking most weeks. This meant that the researchers considered them a control group, which confirmed that the increased risk of stroke in men was due to alcohol.
According to the results, alcohol could be the cause of 8% of blood clot strokes and 16% of all cerebrovascular cerebrovascular accidents in China.
Researchers expect the results to be applicable to other populations, including those without genetic intolerance to alcohol. This could be a vital piece of information for Europeans, who consume the most alcohol in the world.
"Stroke is a major cause of death and disability," said Professor Liming Li, another co-author of Peking University. "This extensive collaborative study has shown that alcohol increases the rate of stroke, which should help inform personal choices and public health strategies."
This is not the first study to show how even occasional alcohol consumption can have a significant negative impact on health. For example, a study last year found that drinking a glass of wine or a pint of beer in addition to the recommended weekly limit could reduce your life expectancy by 30 minutes.
A study published in 2017 found that even a moderate amount of alcohol was linked to changes in brain structure, resulting in a deterioration of its functions. Last August, a global study also published in the Lancet revealed that no amount of alcohol is safe and that the risks far outweigh the benefits.
"Policies to reduce alcohol consumption to the lowest level will be important to improve health," said then senior author Max Griswold of the University of Washington.
"The widely shared view of the health benefits of alcohol needs to be revisited, especially as better methods and analyzes continue to shed light on the contribution of alcohol to alcohol. mortality and disability in the world ".
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