For years, a glass of red wine with dinner had a pretty good reputation.
Heart healthy.
Antioxidants.
The French drink it.
The Mediterranean diet includes it.
Heck, depending on what you were reading, pouring yourself a glass almost felt like something you were supposed to do for your health.
I believed some of that too.
Today?
I wouldn’t start drinking wine for the health benefits.
And the reason isn’t that I’ve joined another health tribe.
The evidence has changed.
Where Did the Heart-Healthy Idea Come From?
For years, observational studies found something interesting.
Moderate drinkers sometimes appeared to have better cardiovascular outcomes than people who didn’t drink.
That produced what researchers call a J-shaped curve. Heavy drinking looked bad, no drinking sometimes looked worse than moderate drinking, and moderate drinking appeared to sit in a sweet spot.
There were problems with interpreting that.
One was who ended up in the “non-drinker” group.
Some studies included former drinkers, including people who had stopped drinking because of health problems. Other lifestyle differences between moderate drinkers and abstainers could muddy the picture too.
As researchers have gotten better at accounting for those differences, the argument that moderate drinking itself provides meaningful health protection has become much harder to make.
That’s very different from saying somebody lied.
Science changed as researchers asked better questions.
That’s what science is supposed to do.
The Cancer Evidence Is Much Less Ambiguous
This part surprised me when I started reading more about it.
Alcoholic beverages have been classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a Group 1 carcinogen since 1988.
That means there is sufficient evidence that alcohol can cause cancer in humans.
It doesn’t mean having a glass of wine is as dangerous as smoking cigarettes or being exposed to asbestos. Those substances are in the same category because we know they can cause cancer, not because their risks are identical.
Alcohol is causally linked to at least seven types of cancer, including cancers of the mouth, throat, esophagus, liver, colon and rectum, and female breast.
And cancer risk doesn’t suddenly appear only when somebody becomes a heavy drinker.
The risk generally increases as alcohol consumption increases, but evidence shows increased risk even at relatively low levels of consumption.
That’s worth knowing.
Then There’s Sleep
We talked recently about my peculiar relationship with the eight-hour sleep rule.
Alcohol belongs in that conversation too.
It can make you feel sleepy.
That isn’t necessarily the same thing as improving your sleep.
A systematic review of 27 studies found that alcohol reduced REM sleep, with disruption showing up even around two standard drinks and becoming greater at higher doses.
That doesn’t mean one glass of wine destroys your night’s sleep.
It means if sleep is something you’re struggling with, alcohol is one of the things worth looking at.
Peggy and I Just Stopped
Here’s the funny thing.
Peggy and I didn’t quit drinking because we’d read all this research.
There was no dramatic announcement.
No final bottle.
No solemn pact.
We just gradually stopped wanting it.
Years ago we’d have a drink.
Then we drank less often.
Eventually neither one of us particularly cared whether we had one at all.
So we stopped.
I don’t miss it.
Peggy doesn’t seem to either.
And now that I’ve learned more about alcohol, I don’t see a health reason to bring it back.
That Doesn’t Mean I’m Coming for Your Wine
This is where I probably would have written the article differently a few months ago.
I might have told you:
Zero is better than any.
Period.
Today I’d rather give you the information and let you decide what to do with it.
Alcohol carries health risks.
Cancer risk is one of the clearest.
More alcohol generally means more risk, and for cancer we don’t have an established completely risk-free level.
That’s information.
What you do with it involves more than a scientific paper.
Maybe you love sharing a glass of wine with Peggy... well, not my Peggy because she won’t drink it. 😂
Maybe wine is part of a wonderful dinner with your spouse.
Maybe you have a beer with friends once in a while.
Life matters too.
I’m not interested in turning every enjoyable thing into a risk calculation.
I am interested in knowing the tradeoffs instead of pretending they don’t exist.
That’s the Part I Find Interesting
The red-wine story is actually a pretty good reminder of why I’m increasingly reluctant to build my life around rigid health rules.
Our understanding changes.
Research improves.
Old assumptions get challenged.
Sometimes the answer becomes less certain.
Sometimes, as with alcohol and cancer, the evidence becomes considerably clearer.
So I read.
I listen.
I pay attention to my own experience.
And occasionally I change my mind.
I used to think moderate drinking might actually be good for you.
I don’t anymore.
That doesn’t mean you need to make the same choice Peggy and I made.
But if you’re pouring a nightly glass of red wine primarily because you think it’s medicine for your heart?
I’d probably find another reason to drink it.