Where Do We Draw the Line? Written August 17, 2024   Decades ago, studies seemed to show that a little alcohol was better for you than none at all.  But a new meta-analysis of that earlier research confirms what many scientists have been saying for years:  The old theory is bunk. Researchers looked at 107 published studies comparing alcohol intake and longevity.  The participants had been asked, “Do you consume alcohol but no more than two drinks a day?”  In other words, do you drink?  Then later their age at death was recorded. Answers could be sorted into three categories: The alcohol industry has been happy to note that the moderate drinkers above the red line live longer than the non-drinkers below the red line.  However, the latter group includes not only teetotalers but also those who are too sick to drink. If we draw a blue line, we find that the current and former drinkers above the blue line do not live longer than the lifelong abstainers below.  (Like my ancestors, I happen to be a lifelong abstainer.) Heavy drinkers, consuming maybe five drinks per day, may lose approximately two years of life.  “Estimates of the health benefits from alcohol have been exaggerated,” writes Tim Stockwell from the University of Victoria., “while its harms have been underestimated.  ...It’s often been thought that wine is something special, that alcohol in wine somehow has magic properties.  It was just a publicity coup for the wine industry three decades ago.  The evidence doesn’t hold up.”