Drinking just THREE alcoholic beverages a week is bad for your health, controversial study claims

First it was 26 glasses of wine a week, then it was 17, then ten, and the latest UK guidelines reduced it to six.

Now drinkers are being told to limit themselves to just two small glasses — or one and a half pints of beer — a week to avoid damage to their health, by the authors of a controversial new report.

And people who drink three drinks a week are at “moderate risk” of alcohol-related health damage, their study claims, while those who indulge in more than six drinks a week expose themselves to “increasing risk.”

The new claims come in a report from the Canadian Center on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA), funded by the Canadian government. And the ‘small drinks’ are substandard by British standards – equivalent to a 125ml glass of wine or three quarters of a pint of beer.

Last night, Dr Richard Harding, who helped review reports on sensible drinking for the UK government in the mid-1990s, pulled out the report.

He argued that the claim that drinking just three drinks a week was harmful to health “was not supported by medical evidence, quite the contrary.”

“Fifty years of epidemiological and clinical research point to substantial health benefits – not harm – from daily intake of small amounts of alcohol,” he said. “The simple fact is that if people followed the recommendation to reduce their consumption to two small drinks or less per week, they would likely be worse off in terms of health.”

Christopher Snowdon, of the Institute of Economic Affairs think tank, said: “A limit of two drinks a week is so ridiculously low that it will be greeted with scorn by the public.”

Both studies mentioned have consistently shown that the overall death rate is lower in those who drink small amounts of alcohol, compared to abstainers.

If CCSA’s ‘two drink rule’ were to be passed in the UK, it would mean that our current recommended maximum of 14 UK units of alcohol per week for both men and half.

People who drink three drinks a week expose themselves to a ‘moderate risk’ of alcohol-related health damage, their study claims, while those who indulge in more than six drinks a week expose themselves to ‘increasingly high risk’ (stock image)

Britain’s recommendations are stricter than Canada’s, in part because they have been updated more recently. Canada’s, instituted in 2011, are no more than 25 British units per week for men and 17 for women.

The CCSA states that current alcohol guidelines are often based on “risk thresholds” that are much higher than considered acceptable for other volunteer activities, such as smoking or unprotected sex.

The report is the latest in a series of public health experts around the world who are taking a much stricter stance on low-level alcohol consumption.

But critics say these often ignore evidence of potential benefit for light drinkers.

In January, the charity accused the World Heart Federation of “seriously misrepresenting” evidence to bolster its argument that drinking even small amounts of alcohol is bad for the heart.

Snowden said such reports were part of “a concerted effort by anti-alcohol academics to reduce alcohol consumption guidelines.” Ultimately, the goal is to bring them down to zero so they can claim there’s ‘no safe level’ to drink.”