This post is updated from 2022, as it still in the news. See recent discussions of this topic here, here, and here

You have likely seen headlines that both claim the benefits of moderate drinking (i.e., here) and that no levels of drinking is safe (i.e., here). So how can these different outcomes be reconciled? Several public health advocates (Harvard School of Public Health, Mayo Clinic, US Centers for Disease Control) have put together websites outlining the risk to benefit calculus of alcohol consumption. For many people, the added risks of cancer as a result of even moderate alcohol consumption may outweigh cardiovascular or other potential health benefits. This was the main consensus of the large meta-analysis that was published in the Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, which lead to recent pronouncements from the World Health Federation and other major health agencies. So, what should an informed consumer do with this information? Perhaps the best advice is to recognize that alcohol consumption is one of the many risk-associated behaviors that must be navigated when it comes to our overall health and wellbeing.