Some scientists have expressed doubt about the conventional wisdom that moderate alcohol consumption can provide health benefits. They think there s a healthy-person confounder in these epidemiological studies, explains ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross. In other words, it s difficult to distinguish the health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption from those of other healthy practices when you re dealing with people who have good health habits in general.
Just as smokeless tobacco companies are prohibited from mentioning the relative harm reduction accompanying use of their product, companies selling alcohol are not allowed to state the current evidence concerning the benefits of moderate consumption of alcohol.
ACSH s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan thinks the skeptics might be too dubious: The reality is that there are those people in public health that believe that something which is harmful in excess cannot ever be healthy, even in moderation.
Some scientists have called for a definitive study to test the effects of drinking, but Dr. Ross doesn t think such an experiment is feasible: You can t do a controlled randomized trial, since no ethical committee would condone the use of a test group to contrast the effects of heavy drinking versus moderate drinking.
For further reference, see ACSH s publication on the health effects of moderate alcohol consumption.
