There are clear and convincing correlations between drinking and premature death, cancer, and cardiovascular problems. Zero alcohol consumption minimizes the overall risk of health loss. The myth that one or two drinks a day are good for you is just that -- a myth.
The study, conducted by researchers at the University Of Washington School Of Medicine, as part of the annual Global Burden of Disease, assesses alcohol-related health outcomes and patterns between 1990 and 2016 for 195 countries and territories and by age and sex. Alcohol use patterns vary widely by country and by sex, the average consumption per drinker, and the attributable disease burden. It provides findings on prevalence of current drinking, prevalence of abstention, alcohol consumption among current drinkers, and deaths and overall poor health attributable to alcohol for 23 health outcomes.
Globally, more than 2 billion people were current drinkers in 2016; 63% were male. According to one of the researchers, there is a compelling and urgent need to overhaul policies to encourage either lowering people's levels of alcohol consumption or abstaining entirely.