Facts

Many people think they don’t have a problem with drinking. However, many people do not realize that drinking five drinks or more in a night, four or more for women, is considered binge drinking; binge drinking at least once a week is considered heavy drinking. Because of the potentially harmful effects of alcohol on both mind and body, most physicians recommend moderate drinking, which is defined as no more than one drink a day for women, and no more than two drinks a day for men. ^2,3,4

A standard drink contains 13.6 g of absolute alcohol. One standard drink may therefore be: 12 oz. of beer (5% alcohol by volume); 5 oz. of wine (12% alcohol by volume); or 1.5 oz. of hard liquor (40% alcohol by volume). ⁵

Is all drinking bad?
People who are moderate drinkers, especially those who drink wine, are less likely to die from Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) than people who drink less or more. Polyphenols, compounds found in red wine, lower the level of inflammation-causing compounds in your bloodstream, which in turn lowers a person’s risk for developing CHD and stroke. ¹⁵ Though moderate drinking relates to a decreased risk of dying from CHD, former director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Enoch Gordis, M.D., advises that people should not start drinking to gain these health benefits because it remains unclear how other lifestyle choices, such as diet and exercise, impact the outcome of these studies.⁶

Researchers have found a causal relationship between alcohol consumption and more than 60 types of disease and injury. Worldwide, approximately 20-30% of esophageal cancer, liver cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, homicides, epilepsy, and motor vehicle accidents are caused by alcohol. The burden of disease is not equally distributed worldwide, as can be seen in the figure below. ⁷

Alcohol-Related Disease & Disability worldwide (% Disability-Adjusted Life Years in each region)

Image adapted from Burden of Disease Attributable to Alcohol. World Health Organization. Retrieved July 12, 2005 from www.who.int/publications/en/. © World Heath Organization 2005.