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If the cold and dark days of winter make you want to take a sip of comforting alcohol, you are far from alone.
An international team of researchers has looked – or rather searched – from a host of data from around the world to test a widespread hypothesis. They found that people living in colder and less sunny places are not only more likely to drink, but also to consume alcohol excessively, and also more likely to suffer from an illness of the liver related to alcohol.
"Because we think that when it's cold, we stay at home more and that alcohol can create a feeling of warmth inside the body," said Dr. Juan Gonzalez-Abraldes, professor of medicine at the University of Alberta, and one of the authors of the research published online by the journal hepatology.
"We thought people in colder countries would drink more, so we wanted to address this issue from a scientific point of view, providing data, numbers and analysis."
The researchers used data from the World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization and other public data sets to compare average temperatures and sunshine hours of different regions with statistics on alcohol consumption and alcoholic cirrhosis.
The data come from 193 countries, including Canada. US figures were broken down by state and county, but Canada was considered as a whole and not by region or jurisdiction.
Ramon Bataller, a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh and lead author of the report, said the goal was to determine if there was a provable relationship between climate and alcoholism.
Liters of alcohol per capita (top), average temperature (bottom left) and average amount of sunlight (lower right). (Ventura-Cots et al./Hepatology/John Wiley and Sons)
"We were very surprised that this particular study was never done," Bataller said.
"In Russia, they drink a lot, in Minnesota, they drink a lot, everyone says," it's so cold, you have to drink "- but something that was supposed has never been studied."
Data trends were clear, said Bataller.
"When we established a correlation, we found that the colder the country, the darker it is, the higher the consumption of alcohol and the more alcoholic cirrhosis," he said.
Control for religion
Researchers recognize that there are many confounding factors, such as religion. Muslim-majority countries tend to consume less alcohol, regardless of the climate, as do areas of the United States where drinking is more strictly regulated, such as Utah.
The researchers said they controlled as many confounders as possible, but that some could not be controlled, according to Bataller.
Incidence of all alcohol (top) and over consumption (bottom) in the counties of the United States. (Ventura Cots et al./Hepatology/John Wiley and Sons)
For example, alcohol consumption data is based on sales figures and Bataller said residents of developing countries may be more likely to drink home-made alcohol.
"In the hottest places, you do not save so much what they drink," Bataller said.
Timothy Stockwell, a professor at the University of Victoria and director of the Canadian Addiction Research Institute, has been working in alcohol research for decades, from Australia to northern Canada . He said that this new research is useful – but above all as a starting point.
"It was well done, but I think there are a lot of questions, that raises more questions than answers," he said.
A big question, he said, concerns the factors related to remoteness. In other words, do people in smaller northern communities drink because it's cold and dark, or because there's nothing else to do to have fun?
The research "raises more questions than it answers," said Tim Stockwell, director of the Canadian Institute of Addiction at the University of Victoria. (University of Victoria)
"In northern Australia, in remote rural areas where it's incredibly hot, we're seeing the same phenomenon of alcohol consumption as in built-up areas," he said.
"It is more important to gather and drink a lot in remote rural areas, and that may have nothing to do with temperature."
Summer Cocktails
He also points out that the research has not broken down data by season – and there is evidence that alcohol spikes are caused by heat waves.
"So, it's not as simple as the colder it gets, the more you drink, but the hotter it gets, the more you drink."
"It's also true that the hotter it gets, the more you drink," said Stockwell.
Still, Stockwell said that while the research showed no causal link between climate and alcohol consumption, it remained useful as it showed a clear correlation.
"I think this kind of global research is fantastic and it's going to start discussions, and I think more people should continue in that direction and try to fight it so we understand it better," he said. he declares.
"It's something real, but we do not understand exactly why that's the case."
Mr. Bataller agrees that his study should be a starting point for researchers and policy makers who are interested in alcohol as a public health problem.
"This is one of the pieces of the puzzle that explains how to prevent heavy alcohol [consumption]and the consequences, "he said.
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