It is a common statement that “small amounts of alcohol are good for your health”, and if you search medical databases, you can find a lot of research data to support this idea. In some epidemiological studies, people have found a subtle correlation between the amount of alcohol consumed and health indicators such as mortality and cardiovascular disease risk: the data curve appears to fall and then rise in a “J-shaped”, it seems that the health risks of a group of people who drink a small amount of alcohol are lower than those who do not drink some. However, such a conclusion has been controversial. Recently, a new study has questioned it. Researchers analyzed that the previous study data is not reliable, “a small amount of alcohol is healthier than no alcohol” phenomenon may only be an illusion caused by research flaws. The J-shaped curve of health risks decreasing and then increasing with alcohol consumption can be seen in many of these studies. Less alcohol is healthier? There may be a problem with the study methodology! The authors of the paper point out that the J-shaped curve appears quite frequently in epidemiological studies of alcohol consumption, where people in the small-drinking group have less heart disease, less deafness, fewer fractures, and even less cirrhosis of the liver than the nondrinking group, which feels incredible. So they suspect that the studies actually had a methodological problem – for example, the way they grouped the subjects. Grouping people by how much they drink is a very important step in these studies, and the assessment of alcohol consumption should take into account a combination of current and past conditions. Some former drinkers may have developed health problems as a result and later decided to stop drinking. If the study had only asked participants about their current drinking, it is possible that these abstainers would have been incorrectly categorized as “non-drinkers” and, as a result, the overall health of the “non-drinker group” would have been lowered. Are they non-drinkers, or have they quit? To verify this, the researchers searched databases to identify 87 past studies and evaluated their methods. It was found that the methods were generally unreliable, with only 13 of the studies ensuring that abstainers and occasional drinkers were correctly grouped. If the “less reliable” studies were excluded and only the higher quality data were analyzed, the original “J-shaped curve” trend was no longer evident. That is, in the more reliable studies, the phenomenon of “less alcohol is healthier than no alcohol” did not appear. The researchers point out that from this analysis, we have reason to be skeptical of “small amounts of alcohol are healthy” and the research behind it. In future studies, researchers also need to avoid bias as much as possible. Having said that, can we drink alcohol or not, and how much can we drink? There is no “safe dose” of alcohol, but following the recommendations for limits can keep the risk low. If you don’t drink, don’t deliberately start drinking for reasons such as “blood circulation” or “sleep aid”. In the end, the less you drink, the better. According to current domestic standards, it is recommended that adult men consume no more than 25 grams of alcohol per day and women no more than 15 grams, and that pregnant women, children and adolescents should not drink alcohol.