Alcohol is ingrained in our culture — so much so that it can be hard to know what’s true and what’s not about drinking and how it affects the body.
Below, Tyler S. Oesterle, M.D., M.P.H., a psychiatrist who researches and treats addiction disorders at Mayo Clinic, helps sort out fact from fiction as he addresses common myths about alcohol use.
Myth: Drinking one glass of alcohol a night has no impact on your health.
Unfortunately, this is not necessarily the case.
While the problems with alcohol are most pronounced when you consume it chronically and in large amounts, even small amounts of alcohol can lead to problems. International and domestic health authorities, including the World Health Organization and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism agree: Drinking alcohol is health risk.
“There’s no medical reason to drink alcohol,” says Dr. Oesterle. “It’s just something people do for fun. Fun is good; I don’t hate fun. But there’s other ways to have fun that don’t include ingesting a toxin.”
While drinking in moderation — defined by guidelines from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans as at most two standard drinks a day for men and one a day for women — is typically OK, it can still cause trouble for some people, Dr. Oesterle says.
You could look at drinking alcohol like skydiving, Dr. Oesterle says. There is no recommended number of times that someone should jump out of a plane. It’s fun for some people, but there is no medical reason to do it or health benefit from it.
Similarly, drinking alcohol can be fun, but there are risks associated with it — so people should be aware of those risks, he says. Unlike skydiving injuries, alcohol use disorder is very common, affecting over 28 million U.S. adults in the past year, according to 2022 data.
Myth: Alcohol really just impacts your liver.
Not true. In addition to affecting the liver, alcohol affects the brain, the heart, and both the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system.
The toll that excess alcohol use takes on the body is immense. Drinking too much over time can:
- Lead to high blood pressure and increase your risk of an enlarged heart, heart failure or stroke.
- Make it harder for your body to resist disease, increasing your risk of various illnesses, especially pneumonia.
- Interfere with your body’s ability to get enough B vitamins and other nutrients.
- Increase risk of many cancers, including mouth, throat, liver, esophagus, colon and breast cancers.
- Damage your nervous system, causing numbness and pain in your hands and feet, disordered thinking, dementia, and short-term memory loss.
Alcohol can be especially problematic in older adults because it can conflict with medications and worsen the symptoms of other health problems that are common among older people.
Additionally, alcohol can damage the nerves in the inner ear, affecting balance. This is a recipe for falls, which are typically much more traumatic in older adults and can even be deadly.
Myth: One glass of alcohol a day, especially if it’s red wine, is good for you.
This also is a myth, says Dr. Oesterle. This belief really took hold when a few studies came out years ago stating that there was a correlation between red wine and fewer deaths from cardiovascular disease, sometimes attributed to the antioxidants in red wine.
“That really got taken and blown out of proportion,” Dr. Oesterle says. “All of a sudden wine became this health must-do, that you must drink wine otherwise you’re not going to live very long. And it was just factually inaccurate. The data behind it was pretty loose.”
The data in the studies was correlative data, not direct causation data.
“So the actual cause (of any health benefit) probably wasn’t the alcohol at all,” Dr. Oesterle says.
Myth: You’re not in danger of health or addiction problems if you only drink alcohol socially.
Again, this is untrue. Cultural norms would have you believe that drinking is integral to certain activities, like a wedding reception, football game, brunch or night out on the town. It’s important to be aware that alcohol doesn’t have to be a part of those things, Dr. Oesterle says.
“It’s addictive for people … and then it’s causing problems. We can’t then get frustrated with those people because we built out a cultural norm around it,” he says.
Myth: If you’ve been drinking responsibly for years, you’re not going to become addicted to alcohol.
Dr. Oesterle leads Mayo Clinic’s inpatient rehabilitation program for addiction and says he often sees alcohol use become a problem for people after they retire. When these people were employed, they may have been too busy to consume copious amounts of alcohol. But without a routine or daily responsibilities, alcohol use can more easily spiral, he says.
“There’s nothing keeping them from drinking all day,” Dr. Oesterle says. “We know that the amount of alcohol exposure predicates the likelihood of developing an alcohol use disorder. So if you have very little alcohol exposure to the brain, your chance of getting addicted to alcohol is very low. But the more alcohol you expose your brain to, the more likely you are to get addicted.”
Myth: Being able to “hold your liquor” means alcohol is not damaging your body as much.
Actually, it can be the opposite. Those who maintain that they can hold their liquor, meaning that they can drink larger amounts with fewer apparent effects, may drink in excess to feel intoxicated. A higher tolerance for alcohol does not mean the body is impervious to the effect of alcohol; it means that drinkers should be more cautious.
The alcohol is still affecting their bodies, even if they do not immediately feel it, and they are still at higher risk of falls, cognitive impairment and other negative effects because they are drinking more.
Myth: If you’re menopausal and having trouble sleeping, alcohol can help you sleep better.
Nope. In fact, alcohol can make sleep worse and menopausal symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats more pronounced. Consuming alcohol during menopause can also increase the risk of heart disease and osteoporosis, says Dr. Jewel M. Kling, M.D., M.P.H., a physician with Mayo Clinic Women’s Health in Arizona.
Alcohol can exacerbate hot flash symptoms, which occur because of disruption to the body’s thermoregulatory zone. Alcohol also interferes with this zone, making the hormone-driven changes worse.
Dr. Kling recommends that people going through menopause limit alcohol to one drink a day or less, in addition to eating a balanced diet and exercising regularly.
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