Many people spend too much time honing in on one part of the US Department of Agriculture’s Dietary Guidelines, part of the federal nutrition policy, the statement in 1995 that “in moderation, alcohol can improve health”. One would think that a small announcement about a possible health benefit from a certain libation would not generate so much attention. I think that many people feel guilty about their alcohol consumption and jump at the idea of justification through scientific data. Ira Goldberg, professor of preventive medicine at Columbia University, goes as far as to say that people are using this as an excuse to drink more, and that it ends up being damaging to their health.“Moderation” can be widely interpreted, and Helen Pearson, a writer for Nature, explains that defining “moderate drinking” can be problematic because people often just assume that their current alcoholic consumption is “moderate”. As defined above, the general moderate drinking guideline is approximately one drink a day for women and two for men. One drink meaning 12 fluid ounces of beer, 5 fluid ounces of wine, or 1.5 fluid ounces of distilled spirits.
In addition to the ambiguity of the term “moderate,” when people delve further they will discover that the statement that moderate drinking can improve health is not necessarily a clear blanket statement regarding all alcohol. The driving evidence behind it revolves specifically around wine. For example, a study done by the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in France announced a component called resveratrol, which is found in red wine, showed improvement in the health of mice; “mice heavily dosed with resveratrol had energy-charged muscles and a reduced heart rate, just as trained athletes do, and manage to live longer [than mice without the resveratrol] even if they consume a poor diet”. Other studies found that “Alcohol reduce[s] coronary disease because it has been found to increase the “good” HDL cholesterol and have anti clotting effects”. These discoveries lead to articles about theories that alcohol can be beneficial, despite the scarcity of evidence and qualifications.The information has the potential to be taken out of context, as do any results released from new experimental data and subsequent theories. Readers must be wary of this.The Mayo Clinic Staff, medical experts, claim, “Alcohol use is a slippery slope. Moderate drinking can offer some health benefits. But it's easy to drink too heavily, leading to serious health consequences.” They concur that if you don’t drink, you should not start drinking on the basis of improving health. There are possible benefits as shown in several studies, however, these benefits can only apply to a certain group of individuals. Not only are there inconclusive statements about how much alcohol to drink, and what kind, but also what kind of people it positively affects. They conclude that if you drink moderately and responsibly then it shouldn’t be detrimental to your health, but people shouldn’t start drinking on the sole basis of attempting to be healthier.
Some might be eager to place the blame for alcohol related problems (addiction, diseases caused by overconsumption, or harm to the consumer or bystander) on alcohol manufacturers that provide grants to research institutions publishing information supporting that alcohol can be healthy. However, Fisher, a writer for The New York Times, verifies that although evidence has been released about the consumption of wine improving health, the industry cannot promote this discovery due to regulation on advertising. Organizations such as the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, and the Wine Institute prevent alcohol producers from making certain health claims. He predicts that these new studies on the health benefits of alcohol may spark sales increases, but it will not be because of any promotion from the alcohol industry itself. The problems that often result from alcohol consumption could be more efficiently solved by acknowledging the negative consequences of over consumption of alcohol, and expanding on the possible unreliability of certain claims.
Most people are familiar with the unfortunate and devastating tragedies revolving around alcohol consumption getting out of hand, such as the death of innocent people or lives forever plagued with guilt and regret. But even if people are aware of the consequences that can result from drinking, some may think that they will not lose control and still hesitate abandoning the idea that the continuance or beginning of moderate alcohol consumption could be beneficial. The logical argument against this possible inclination is that there are so many confounding variables, which are variables extraneous to the variable being analyzed, that could affect the outcome. These variables mean that there will never be indisputable conclusions. Some of these confounding variables are diet, exercise level, genetics, wealth, and environment, which can heavily influence a person’s chance of disease like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity. For example, someone who drinks moderately might also eat healthily and exercise daily; therefore it would be impossible to conclude whether their stronger hearts were a result of moderate alcohol consumption or of healthy diet and regular exercise. Similarly unclear, someone who doesn’t drink may have stopped due to health reasons in the first place, meaning that they were already susceptible to disease. No one should make life changes based on inconstant data.
As a college student, hearing anything about the benefits of alcohol must be taken lightly. It’s more important to understand moderation (including amount and frequency), and maintain awareness of one’s surroundings. After learning the bare minimum about possible health benefits of alcohol, instead of spending more time researching context and applicability, time should be spent analyzing one’s lifestyle and focusing on more substantial elements that are unquestionably beneficial.
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