New Canadian alcohol guidelines say 'no amount' is healthy

The advice is based on growing evidence, after decades of sometimes conflicting research, that even small amounts of alcohol can have serious health consequences.

Canadian health authorities have revised their alcohol consumption guidelines, warning that no amount is healthy and recommending people to reduce their consumption as much as possible.

The new guidelines, published on Tuesday, represent a major change from previous ones introduced in 2011, which advised women not to no more than 10 drinks per week and for men to limit to 15.

Experts who developed the guidelines said the new approach builds on more and more evidence, after d decades of sometimes conflicting research that even small amounts of alcohol can have serious health consequences.

Instead of recommending people limit to a certain number drinks per week, the guidelines describe a "continuum of risk" associated with drinking even a few glasses of wine or beer over a seven-day period.

The risk is "low" for people who drink two or fewer standard drinks per week; "moderate" for those who consume between three and six standard drinks per week; and "increasingly high" for those who consume seven or more standard drinks per week, according to guidelines published in a report by the Canadian Center on Substance Use and Addiction.

The report defines a standard drink as a 12 ounce bottle of beer containing 5% alcohol, a five ounce glass of wine containing 12% alcohol, or a 1.5 ounce shot glass of alcohol containing 40% alcohol. .

"Research shows that no amount or type of alcohol is good for your health," the report says. "It does not matter what type of alcohol it is - wine, beer, cider or spirits. Drinking alcohol, even in small quantities, is harmful for everyone, regardless of age, gender, gender, ethnicity, alcohol tolerance or lifestyle. That's why if you drink, it's better to drink less."

Recent research has shown that even low levels of alcohol consumption slightly increase the risk of high blood pressure and heart disease, and the risk increases significantly for people who drink heavily.

A study published in November found that between 2015 and 2019, excessive alcohol consumption led to approximately 140,000 deaths per year in the United States. About 40% of those deaths had acute causes, such as car accidents. But the majority were caused by chronic illnesses attributed to alcohol, such as liver disease, cancer, and heart disease.

Dr. Catherine Paradis, acting associate director of research at the Canadian Center on Substance Use and Addiction, said drinking even two drinks a week has been linked to an elevated risk of seven types of cancer, including cancer. breast and colon, as well as cardiovascular diseases. illness.

Dr. Paradis, who was co-chair of the group that developed the new guidelines, noted that the World Health Organization recently said the harms associated with alcohol consumption had been "systematically assessed over the years and are well documented. and that "when it comes to alcohol consumption, there is no safe amount that does not affect health."

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