Wine can lead you to early grave

A glass of wine after dinner can help with digestion, but might shorten your life in the long run, a new study has revealed.

According to the study conducted by the University of Cambridge and released on April 14, men and women who habitually have more than five pints (2.8 litres) of beer or six glasses of wine a week, are more likely to shorten their lives than teetotallers.

Five drinks roughly translate to 100g of alcohol.

For hundreds of years, even in the times of Jesus, the belief has been that taking wine with food is good for one’s health.

“Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses,” apostle Paul writes in 1 Timothy 5:23 of the Bible.

EXCESSIVE DRINKING
However, scientists have come to the conclusion that having “one for the road” daily could shorten a drinker’s life by six months.

Those who have 10 or more drinks in a week, say scientists, shorten their lives by one to two years and those that have 18 drinks and more cut their lives short by five years.

The study published in the Lancet was titled “Risk thresholds for alcohol consumption: Combined analysis of individual-participant data for 599,912 current drinkers in 83 prospective studies”.

It showed there is a connection between high blood pressure and other heart diseases and the amount of alcohol consumed.

“Alcohol consumption was roughly linearly associated with higher risk of stroke, coronary disease, heart failure, fatal hypertensive disease and fatal aortic aneurysm,” the study by Dr Angela Wood and her team said.

HEART DISEASE

An aortic aneurysm is the weakening of the walls of the aorta, the largest artery in the body which carries blood away from the heart.

The weakened walls can then bulge and may leak blood or even burst leading to death.

The study was conducted in 19 high income countries around the world (UK, US, Sweden, Canada, Italy, Portugal and Spain).

It compared the health and drinking habits of nearly 600,000 people and was controlled for age, smoking, history of diabetes, level of education and occupation over the course of seven-and-a half years.

All participants at the beginning of the study had no prior history of heart disease.

“In the 599,912 current drinkers included in the analysis, we recorded 40,310 deaths and 39,018 incidents of cardiovascular disease events (12,090 of which were strokes),” Dr Wood indicated in the report.

REGULATION

Those studied were regular drinkers only, 44 per cent of whom were women.

This was to prevent biases that may have occurred by including people who never drank or those who had stopped.

The recommended amount of alcohol for consumption in the UK is 100g per week while in the US it is 196g for men and 98g for women.

The results of the study supported the decision by the UK to reduce the alcohol consumption guidelines.

The study could be used as a benchmark for countries that are looking to set their alcohol guidelines.

LAWMAKERS
In Kenya, no guidelines on the safe amount of alcohol consumption currently exist.

According to Ms Gladys Mugambi of the Ministry of Health, the matter is currently being discussed.

“Before we can come up with a guideline on the safe amount of alcohol that can be drank, we need to first find out the types of alcohol in the market and then we will be able to make an informed decision.

"We are currently working with the division of non-communicable diseases on the way forward,” Ms Mugambi told the Nation.