It’s easy to forget, but alcoholic beverages are often quite high in calories. Regularly imbibing, then, can sneakily contribute to weight gain and obesity. Those can come with their own set of health problems, ranging from heart disease to type 2 diabetes.
- While some studies suggest light to moderate alcohol consumption can help fight cardiovascular disease, heavier drinking may have the reverse effect (6).
- If you’re struggling to moderate your drinking, it’s crucial to seek professional help, such as therapy or support groups.
- While I could find fewer controlled trials demonstrating negative health impacts of low-doses of alcohol, I still did find a couple.
- Consuming any amount of alcohol may have a negative impact on your lifespan.
How does alcohol interact with other lifestyle factors affecting longevity?
In their place comes a crippling addiction to the the drug in an effort to just feel normal. This is precisely the case with cocaine, which is why the life expectancy of a coke addict is so low. In an effort to keep up with the drug’s effects, many people end up taking multiple ‘lines’ of cocaine each and every day. This daily dose of cocaine can cost a cocaine addict more than a drug addiction day and a half of life for each day the drug is used. If you aren’t willing to cut your drinking habit cold turkey, you’re probably wondering exactly how many years it will set you back. One study suggests when compared to adults who drank less than seven drinks per week, drinking seven to 14 drinks per week shaved around an extra six months off their life expectancy (16).
- And as I don’t find it hard to skip drinking I’ll probably average even lower than that, since on most days I don’t drink any alcohol at all.
- Since the death toll caused by alcohol abuse is so high, it is important to understand the ways in which alcohol can kill someone.
- Alcoholism is a chronic and progressive disease that can have severe physical and mental health consequences.
- In Denmark, registered alcohol consumption per capita decreased slightly after the year 2002.
Alcohol’s Impact on Specific Health Outcomes
- Combined analysis in 2018 by Angela M Wood PhD et al found that drinking more than 100g of alcohol each week – equivalent to 5 pints of beer or large glasses of wine – led to a reduced lifespan of between 6 months to 4-5 years.
- The potential effects of drinking on a person’s health and longevity depend largely on the amount and frequency of alcohol consumed.
- For each of these cancers, the more alcohol you consume, the higher your risk.
- If alcohol is bad for us, then how do you explain the “French Paradox”—which claims the low rates of heart disease in French people (despite their fatty diet) are linked to their red wine consumption?
Up to the present time, alcohol researchers have made these studies around the world. They have done so in Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France and Germany. Also in Hong Kong (China), Italy, Japan, Russia, Sweden, the US, and unspecified countries in Europe. Additionally, healthcare providers can offer tailored advice regarding lifestyle modifications that promote longevity—further enhancing quality of life after overcoming addiction challenges. Regular medical check-ups play an essential role in monitoring health status post-recovery from alcoholism.
Scientists Say GlyNAC Supplements May Be the Key to Healthy Aging
Raw MMSE scores were converted to sex, age and education adjusted Z-scores using normative data from the National Institute on Aging–Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center Uniform Data Set 23. Individuals with Z-scores below −1.5 were classified as having cognitive impairment 24. Individuals surviving to age 85 with cognitive impairment were classified as having Cognitively Impaired Longevity (CIL). Those can heavy drinkers live a long life surviving to at least age 85 without cognitive impairment were classified as attaining Cognitively Healthy Longevity (CHL). To be classified as having CHL individuals must have completed the MMSE within 2 years of age 85, or older, with a Z-score of −1.5 or higher.