Drinking alcohol increases the risk of up to 60 diseases

Cirrhosis, stroke and cancer are well-documented risks of drinking too much alcohol, but after analysing data from half a million men living in China, Oxford University researchers have found that the habit may also increase the risk of gout and cataracts.

Among the 60 diseases were other disorders that had never been shown to be linked to alcohol, such as bone fractures, lung cancer and circulatory diseases.

Experts say the findings suggest drinking is linked to a wider range of diseases than previously thought.

Excessive alcohol consumption is thought to cause around 3 million deaths worldwide each year. The NHS recommends that men and women should drink no more than 14 units of alcohol a week. A unit is defined as half a pint of beer or a small glass of wine.

However, the World Health Organization (WHO) asserts that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption for health. This argument is becoming a hotly debated topic. Some previous studies have suggested that a glass of wine or half a pint of beer a day can prevent many diseases.

The research team at the University of Oxford collaborated with colleagues at Peking University and the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences to conduct the study.

They pulled medical records from a Chinese database containing health information on over 512,000 adults, with an average age of 52. The records included information about their drinking habits.

About 30% of men drink alcohol regularly - at least once a week, while the rate is only 2% of women.

As a result, women were used as a control group to confirm that the increased risk of disease in men was due to alcohol consumption rather than a mechanism involving genetic variants.

They analyzed 12 years of medical records to assess how alcohol affected the risk of developing 207 different diseases. Some were non-medical, such as traffic accidents and injuries.

The findings, published in the journal Nature Medicine, found that alcohol use increased the risk of 60 diseases in men in China.

These include 28 diseases previously identified by WHO as alcohol-related, such as liver, bowel and rectal cancers.

However, they also found 33 previously unidentified diseases, such as gout, cataracts, bone fractures and stomach ulcers.

Certain drinking habits such as daily drinking, binge drinking or drinking outside of meals in particular increase the risk of serious diseases such as cirrhosis.

The team also identified dose-dependent associations: every four drinks a day was associated with a 14% higher risk of alcohol-related disease.

Such drinking frequency also increased the risk of developing 33 newly identified diseases by 6%.

Additionally, every four drinks a day was associated with a more than doubled risk of cirrhosis and gout.

Men who drink alcohol regularly have a higher risk of hospitalization and disease than men who drink alcohol only occasionally.

This study also demonstrates the impact of alcohol consumption on disease risk in populations around the world.

“Alcohol consumption is increasing in China, especially among men. This large-scale collaborative study highlights the need to strengthen alcohol control policies in China,” said study co-author Professor Liming Li of Peking University.

Meanwhile, Associate Professor Iona Millwood at Oxford Public Health said it was clear that alcohol use was one of the most important risk factors for poor health, both in China and globally. This was important for developing prevention strategies across different countries.

According to News