It doesn’t matter how much you drink – the risk to the drinker’s health starts from the first drop of any alcoholic beverage. The bottom line is that alcohol is potentially addictive, can cause intoxication, and contributes to health problems and preventable deaths. If you already drink at low levels and continue to drink, risks for these issues appear to be low. For Alcohol Awareness Month, learn what everyone needs to know about drinking alcohol — the good, the bad, and the ugly. More information about alcohol and cancer risk is available in the Surgeon General’s advisory. Loose use of the terms “moderate” and “a drink” has fueled some of the ongoing debate about alcohol’s impact on health.
- Despite this, the question of beneficial effects of alcohol has been a contentious issue in research for years.
- 17 There was no association with folate and increased breast cancer risk among women who drank low or no alcohol daily.
- For men, heavy drinking means more than four drinks on any day or more than 14 drinks a week.
- Getting extra folate may cancel out this alcohol-related increase.
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Drinking moderately if you’re otherwise healthy may be a risk you’re willing to take. But heavy drinking carries a much higher risk even for those without other health concerns. Be sure to ask your healthcare professional about what’s right for your health and safety. The definition of heavy is alcohol good for you drinking is based on a person’s sex. For women, more than three drinks on any day or more than seven drinks a week is heavy drinking.
- For Alcohol Awareness Month, learn what everyone needs to know about drinking alcohol — the good, the bad, and the ugly.
- Alcohol causes at least seven types of cancer, including the most common cancer types, such as bowel cancer and female breast cancer.
Is alcohol good or bad for you? Yes.
In general, risks exceed benefits until middle age, when cardiovascular disease begins to account for an increasingly large share of the burden of disease and death. It’s possible that the fast-acting enzyme breaks down alcohol before it can have a beneficial effect on HDL and clotting factors. Interestingly, these differences in the ADH1C gene do not influence the risk of alcoholism symptoms heart disease among people who don’t drink alcohol. This adds strong indirect evidence that alcohol itself reduces heart disease risk. “So, when we talk about possible so-called safer levels of alcohol consumption or about its protective effects, we are ignoring the bigger picture of alcohol harm in our Region and the world.
Adult Health
For men, heavy drinking means more than four drinks on any day or more than 14 drinks a week. As these examples illustrate, drinking alcohol may raise https://dev-my-best-portfilio.pantheonsite.io/2025/02/12/what-does-being-drunk-feel-like-the-stages-of/ the risk of some conditions but not others. Patients should work with their clinicians to understand their personal risks and make informed decisions about drinking. Learn more about the results of some large prospective cohort studies of alcohol consumption and cardiovascular disease.