A joint study by Oxford University and Peking University has found that over 60 diseases are associated with alcohol consumption and health | China | Oxford University
Can health issues such as fractures and cataracts be related to drinking alcohol?
On June 8, the authoritative international medical journal Natural Medicine published the results of a large population health study based on Chinese adults jointly conducted by Peking University and Oxford University, refreshing people's awareness of the dangers of alcohol consumption. The results show that drinking increases the risk of 61 diseases among Chinese men. Some diseases that sound like they have nothing to do with drinking show a close relationship with alcohol.
"this study provides important causal evidence for the health hazards of alcohol." On June 9, Chen Zhengming, a professor of epidemiology at Oxford University and one of the newsletter authors of the paper, told Science and Technology Daily that the study identified 33 new diseases related to alcohol and gave evidence. This is essential to develop alcohol-related disease prevention strategies for different countries.
Alcohol-induced health effects have strong lag and interference from other incentives, so it is often difficult to obtain a clear causal relationship. As a result, few studies have conducted a comprehensive and systematic assessment of the relationship between alcohol consumption and the risk of different diseases in the same population.
In order to obtain a convincing causal link, this study was jointly conducted by researchers from Oxford University and Peking University. Alcohol consumption, as one of the main causes of chronic disease, was listed as an important research factor.
The study found that about 1/3 of the Chinese men in the study drank alcohol regularly, at least once a week, but only 2 per cent of women had such a lifestyle.
"the female population, with almost no drinking habits, is a very effective control group, which helps to confirm that the risk of excess disease in men in genetic analysis is indeed caused by alcohol consumption rather than other factors." Said Dr. Yan Biqi, lead author of the paper and researcher at Oxford University.
Based on ingenious design, data analysis rules out the possibility that genetic factors contribute to the high level of these diseases. The researchers say that some genes are specific to East Asians, and some might say that the high incidence in large cohort studies is caused by certain specific genes, but because there are women as controls, they have the same genetic characteristics but drink alcohol irregularly, and there is no high incidence of the disease. In this way, a relatively complete logical relationship is formed.
The study found that men who drank regularly had a significantly higher overall risk of developing various diseases and had more hospitalizations than men who drank occasionally.
As the saying goes, "A small drink pleases you, but a big drink hurts your body". Moderate drinking was once thought to have protective effects, such as reducing the risk of ischemic heart disease, but the analysis of this study showed that such protective effects did not exist, and moderate drinking was not associated with a reduced risk of ischemic heart disease.
The study also concluded that regular drinking, whether drunk or not, can cause health hazards in many ways, causing up to 61 diseases. The study also showed a preliminary quantitative causal relationship between alcohol intake and 61 diseases, that is, an average increase of about 4 glasses of alcohol consumption per day could lead to a 14% increase in the risk of 28 diseases identified by the World Health Organization. this led to a 6% increase in the risk of 33 newly found diseases.
"the evidence is clearer that improper use of alcohol is an important factor in health problems, both in China and globally," said Iona Millwood, an associate professor at Oxford University and one of the authors of the paper. "
Based on the above findings, Professor Li Liming, an epidemiologist at Peking University and one of the leaders of the team, pointed out that alcohol consumption among Chinese men is on the rise, and the large collaborative study shows that China needs stricter alcohol control policies.
