Even light drinking is harmful to older adults, study warns: ‘From the first drop’

If you booze, you lose.

New research suggests that no amount of alcohol is beneficial to your health or safe to consume as you age.

A 12-year United Kingdom study that tracked 135,000 adults 60 and older found that even light drinking was associated with an increase in cancer deaths . This uptick was most pronounced in older adults who live in low-income areas and have health troubles.

These findings contradict the previously held belief that small quantities of alcohol, particularly red wine, are good for the heart. This belief is based on shoddy evidence that the vino-avowed French have lower rates of heart disease .

The new research, published Monday in the journal JAMA Network Open , maintained there was no reduction in heart disease deaths among light or moderate drinkers, regardless of their health or socioeconomic status.

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Lead study author Rosario Ortolá, an assistant professor of preventive medicine and public health at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, told the New York Times , “We did not find evidence of a beneficial association between low drinking and [overall] mortality.”

She added that far from being good for you, consuming alcohol likely raises the risk of cancer “from the first drop.”

The study linked heavy drinking, over 40 grams a day for men and over 20 grams a day for women, to more deaths from all causes.

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A standard US drink contains 14 grams of alcohol, the equivalent to 12 ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of liquor.

Moderate drinking is described as 20 to 40 grams of alcohol for men and 10 to 20 grams for women a day.

These latest findings echo other research that suggests consuming just one alcoholic beverage per day can shorten a person’s life span by approximately two and a half months.

A separate study found that abstaining from alcohol — or reducing the amount that’s consumed — can greatly reduce the risk of getting oral or esophageal cancer.

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Researchers in the latest study did note that drinking mostly wine and drinking exclusively with meals lessened the mortality risk, particularly of death from cancer. Ortolá suggested that risk reduction could be attributed to slower alcohol absorption, or it might reflect other healthy lifestyle choices.

US dietary guidelines say that “drinking less is better for health than drinking more” and that women should limit themselves to one drink a day and men to two a day.

The 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans is expected to be released in the coming months, so scientific groups are preparing reports on the relationship between alcohol and health.

In 2023, the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction unveiled updated health guidelines related to drinking. Despite the centenarian myth that a glass of wine is the key to longevity , Canadian officials reported that “no amount or kind of alcohol is good for your health,” even in a “small amount.”

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has established that alcohol is a known carcinogen and alcohol consumption increases the risk of several cancers, including breast, liver, head and neck, and esophageal and colorectal cancers.

Even at low levels of consumption, the WHO argued that alcohol “can bring health risks,” but noted that “most alcohol-related harms come from heavy episodic or heavy continuous alcohol consumption.”

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