While being debated, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends moderate drinking, or no more than one drink per day for women and two per day for men. A new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) attributes 2.6 million deaths per year to alcohol consumption—4.7% of all deaths. Furthermore, although alcohol research in general is becoming increasingly sophisticated, the measurement of alcohol consumption remains imprecise.

Special Health Reports

Talk with your doctor right away if you have signs of alcohol use disorder — even if you don’t think they’re causing any problems in your life. If you think you or a loved one may have developed a dependence or AUD from binge drinking, consider reaching out to a physician or therapist for help. The contents of this website are for educational purposes and are not intended to offer personal medical advice.

Can an alcoholic ever drink again in moderation?

This is why findings about moderate alcohol consumption are often contradictory, with some studies suggesting benefits (like reduced cardiovascular risk) and others showing risks (such as cancer or liver disease). Alcohol is one part of the ongoing debate surrounding the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Other contentious issues center around recommendations for red meat, sugary beverages, and environmental sustainability. QF measures query the respondent on both drinking frequency and average quantity consumed per occasion, thereby providing a measure of the total alcohol amount consumed. QF measures currently may be the most widely used instruments with which to measure drinking in most countries, including the United States.

Health Benefits of Alcohol

Diary methods produce higher estimates than do either QF or short-term recall methods. For example, in the previously mentioned study using an automated interactive telephone reporting system (Searles et al. 1995), 50 volunteers reported their daily alcohol intake for 112 consecutive days. Other data collected by traditional means immediately after study completion demonstrated that drinkers—particularly heavier drinkers—retrospectively underreported their alcohol consumption. Questionnaires using the graduated frequency approach consistently produce higher estimates of volume of alcohol consumption than do QF measures, particularly among heavier drinkers.

Health Alerts from Harvard Medical School

• On the other hand, the variability also can be a handicap, because the information collected about alcohol consumption often is not comparable across studies.
• In the English language, “moderate” can be used as both a qualitative and a quantitative term, but it generally carries strong qualitative connotations.
• One disadvantage, however, is that respondents, particularly those with irregular drinking patterns, may have difficulty providing accurate answers, because they must mentally average their alcohol consumption over the entire year (Rehm 1998).
• Information on alcohol use, symptoms, and consequences, however, was not collected routinely until the early 1970s because alcohol dependence was not viewed as a chronic disease.
• Systematic epidemiological sociological surveys of the general U.S. population began in the 1960s.

The benefits of moderate drinking aren’t limited to the heart. In the Nurses’ Health Study, the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, and other studies, gallstones 40, 41 and type 2 diabetes 32, 42, 43 were less likely to occur in moderate drinkers than in non-drinkers. Alcohol interacts in potentially dangerous ways with a variety of medications, including acetaminophen, antidepressants, anticonvulsants, painkillers, and sedatives. It is also addictive, especially for people with a family history of alcoholism.

• That usually means four or more drinks within two hours for women and five or more drinks within two hours for men.
• Too much alcohol consumption can lead to a variety of health problems, and the risks to your health and safety increase along with the amount you drink.
• Data on various chronic illnesses, as opposed to mental disorders, have been gathered since the turn of the century.
• If you already drink at low levels and continue to drink, risks for these issues appear to be low.
• Last, the analysis was based on current drinkers and ignored past drinking.

Alcohol use: Weighing risks and benefits

Typically, many familiar forms of distilled spirits (e.g., vodka, whiskey, gin, or rum) have alcohol contents of 40 to 50 percent (often expressed as 80 to 100 proof). Considerable variation may occur even within these categories, with the alcohol content of some varieties being as low as 30 percent and others as high as 75 percent. Liqueurs and cordials, usually grouped with distilled spirits, often are less concentrated than standard liquors.

Moderate Drinking Explained: Guidelines, Definition, & FAQs

The most commonly used measures in how to drink moderately this category ask each participant to cite the number of drinks that he or she consumed on each of the 7 days preceding the survey, beginning with the most recent day (Rehm 1998). One drawback to this type of survey is that many infrequent or occasional drinkers may report no alcohol consumption during the time studied. Consequently, short-term recall measures may overestimate the proportion of abstainers compared with other survey methods.

Science around moderate alcohol use

Said Rimm, “For longevity and all-cause chronic disease, those who drink 1-2 drinks a day relatively frequently do the best. “After that, if you enjoy a few drinks several times a week, it will probably do you benefit! For decades, we have been told moderate consumption of alcohol has protective effects, reducing heart disease and increasing life span. More recently, some researchers have questioned the health benefits of alcohol and linked any drinking with increased risks for premature death, heart disease, stroke, and cancer. A new study indicates any drinking may cause dementia, which scares a lot of people. This study jars the belief that light to moderate drinking could provide cognitive benefits.

• Studies from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) have found that drinking frequency is a risk factor, even with moderate drinking.
• According to this measure, a 200-proof solution contains 100 percent alcohol by volume; an 80-proof beverage contains 40 percent alcohol by volume (Doernberg and Stinson 1985).
• Drinking moderately if you’re otherwise healthy may be a risk you’re willing to take.
• In some people, the initial reaction may feel like an increase in energy.
• In these cases, drinking alcohol can do much more harm than good.
• You’ll also learn the possible health benefits and risks of drinking alcohol.

Consider talking with someone who has had a problem with drinking but has stopped. In the United States, people younger than age 21 are not legally able to drink alcohol. In this video, Dr. Bobby Lazzara explains the potential benefits of alcohol for your heart and emphasizes the importance of moderation. While consuming alcohol in moderation appears to have some benefits, it is important to remember that too much can be devastating for overall health and even life-threatening in the long run. The investigators reported in the journal BMC Medicine that people who drank from 2 to 7 glasses of wine per week were much less likely to be diagnosed with clinical depression. One standard drink in the U.S. contains around 14 grams of pure alcohol.