Moderate drinking actually lowers risk of death, major National Academies study finds

This Bud’s for you — and your health.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine scrambled millions of Americans’ New Year’s resolutions with a report this week that found those who consume a moderate amount of alcohol do better on a host of health indicators.

Excessive drinking is harmful, the researchers flatly declared.

They said the evidence indicates that one drink daily for women and a couple of tipples for men could be just what the doctor ordered.

The report was couched in caveats and provisos. Still, the overall finding was that people who drink a little have a 16% lower mortality rate for their demographics than those who abstain altogether.

“The report concludes with moderate certainty that compared with never consuming alcohol, moderate alcohol consumption is associated with lower all-cause mortality,” the National Academies said.

That challenges the conventional wisdom of the World Health Organization, which declares alcohol a “known carcinogen” and links even low-level drinking to at least seven types of cancer.

“No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health,” the WHO opines. The “risks start from the first drop.”

Congress ordered the study, which was funded by the Agriculture Department’s budget and will be used in the next update of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Those guidelines lean toward teetotaling. They advise those who don’t drink not to take it up and adults who drink to limit consumption to one daily for women and two daily for men.

A single drink is 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits.

The research seeped into social media with mixed reactions.

Some expressed skepticism, and others accepted the validation.

“Don’t bet against booze,” posted Noah Friedman, who runs an alcohol-focused venture capital fund.

Researchers broke down their findings into different health indicators and levels of confidence.

The most surprising finding was on cancer. The analysts confirmed long-standing findings that alcohol was associated with higher risks of breast cancer and possibly colon cancer. Still, they could not establish a link between moderate consumption and some other cancers, such as mouth or esophageal.

Researchers couldn’t reach any firm conclusions on alcohol consumption and weight changes or on the likelihood of developing dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.

For heart health, the researchers were pretty confident that low-level drinkers have fewer fatal heart attacks and strokes. It’s less clear whether they have fewer nonfatal episodes.

The American Heart Association said in a statement that the relationship between alcohol and heart disease is complex.

“It’s best to talk to your primary care physician about your alcohol consumption and prior to beginning to drink for any possible health benefits,” the association said.

The WHO said it could not provide a comment before the publication deadline for this article.

The report is replete with caveats.

Researchers said alcohol acts throughout the body and in complex ways, making it difficult to tease out rules for consumption and health. The nonalcoholic contents of drinks make it more challenging.

With a lack of specific published studies of clinical drinking, the analysts usually relied on self-reported consumption.

That introduced an element of error, compounded by the fact that different types of alcohol can have different effects. Other researchers have different definitions of what constitutes abstaining or moderate consumption.