“The safest level of drinking is none.” This was the stunning conclusion of a big paper that appeared last week in the Lancet — one that prompted dozens of news stories warning of the dangers of even the lowest levels of alcohol consumption.
There's just one problem: the paper's own data show no difference between abstainers and moderate drinkers. Not only is there zero difference in health effects between abstainers and those who imbibe one or two drinks a day, statistician David Spiegelhalter estimated that 25,000 people would need to drink 400,000 bottles of gin to experience one extra health problem compared to non-drinkers, “which indicates a rather low level of harm in these occasional drinkers.”
Everything in moderation, then.
