To be honest, I’d never heard of that recommendation in my prior post to have 3 alcohol-free days a week, if you regularly drink alcohol.

Here’s where it came from:

The Evidence Base For Alcohol Guidelines, UK Parliament: Science and Technology Committee, October 2011

“32. The government guidelines should recognise that hazardous drinking has two components: frequency of drinking and amount of drinking. To ignore either of these components is scientifically unjustified. A very simple addition would remedy this problem namely a recommendation that to remain within safe limits of alcohol consumption that people have three alcohol-free days a week.”

I’ve read more studies in recent years that tie strokes and certain cancers to alcohol consumption, but guidelines continued to state you could drink daily as long as it was in moderation, that’s 1 drink a day for women, 2 drinks a day for men.

Looking around, I stumbled upon this:

The Frequency Of Alcohol Consumption Is Associated With The Stroke Mortality, Acta Neurologica Scandinavica, 8 March 2014

They followed 2609 Finnish men for over 20 years. They found:

“Conclusion: This study shows a strong association between the frequency of alcohol consumption and stroke mortality, independent of total amount of alcohol consumption. The risk of stroke death was the highest among men who consumed alcohol greater than 2.5 times per week.”

Men who drank alcohol more than twice a week had an over 3-fold risk of dying from a stroke compared to men who drank no alcohol.  And that doesn’t include people who had a non-fatal stroke. 3-fold! That is an incredible statistic. And that is irrespective of the amount of alcohol consumed! Plus, they adjusted for things like high blood pressure, smoking, weight, and diabetes. That means the increased risk wasn’t, for example, a result of high blood pressure … something alcohol can cause.

Wow.