Premium
A safe level of alcohol consumption: the right answer demands the right question
Author(s) -
Mukamal K. J.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of internal medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.625
H-Index - 160
eISSN - 1365-2796
pISSN - 0954-6820
DOI - 10.1111/joim.13129
Subject(s) - medicine , consumption (sociology) , context (archaeology) , alcohol consumption , population , randomized controlled trial , scale (ratio) , environmental health , alcohol , surgery , paleontology , social science , biochemistry , chemistry , sociology , biology , physics , quantum mechanics
Alcohol has been produced by humans for nearly ten millennia, but gold‐standard evidence by which to judge the health effects of limited alcohol consumption remains elusive, introducing serious difficulty in considering the safety of alcohol consumption. To do so, physicians and policymakers must consider the population, dose and context of alcohol consumption and the end‐point, preferably a holistic composite, of interest. The limitations of new research trends, such as mega‐cohorts, genetic instrumental variable analysis and modelling studies, must also be viewed against the much larger backdrop of existing evidence. Some existing guidelines, such as the 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, succeed remarkably in this task. Nonetheless, large‐scale randomized trials are urgently needed if future generations are to enjoy any greater insight into the health effects of population‐wide alcohol consumption than the current one has.