Is It Safe to Have an Alcoholic Drink Before Dinner?

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No one in our family has ever needed to cling to a telephone pole on the way home after drinking too much alcohol. Rather, we have long held that moderate amounts of alcohol can be healthy. But are we right? Now, a new Canadian report claims more than one or two drinks a week increases the risk of health problems, such as heart disease, stroke and cancer.

Professor Dan Malleck of Brock University, who specializes in alcohol regulation, and who has written several books on this topic, is skeptical of these generalized guidelines. He says they remind him of the Temperance Movement of long ago. Moreover, he states, the study used relative rather than absolute risk. This means that just three ounces and a half of alcohol shockingly increases the risk of larynx cancer by nearly 100 per cent! But this cancer is known to be primarily related to the smoking of tobacco.