We turned to the World Health Organisation (WHO) for the
most authoritative and unbiased edict on how much alcohol you should drink.
WHO experts analysed thousands of studies on the risks and
benefits of alcohol and concluded:
“No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health.”
WHO went further to point out: “Alcohol causes at least
seven types of cancer… any beverage containing alcohol, regardless of its price
and quality, poses a risk of developing cancer.”
What is more, even small amounts are harmful.
“Half of all alcohol-attributable cancers in the WHO
European Region are caused by “light” and “moderate” alcohol consumption – less
than 1.5 litres of wine or less than 3.5 litres of beer or less than 450 millilitres
of spirits per week,” says WHO.
While 1.5 litres of wine may seem a lot, over a week it is
less than one and a half glasses per day, or around one “home pour” in a
regular wine glass per day.
Dr Carina Ferreira-Borges, Regional Advisor for Alcohol and
Illicit Drugs in the WHO Regional Office for Europe, says, “It does not matter
how much you drink – the risk to the drinker’s health starts from the first
drop of any alcoholic beverage. The only thing that we can say for sure is that
the more you drink, the more harmful it is – or, in other words, the less you
drink, the safer it is.”
