![](https://www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.6859342.1713914844!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_800/image.jpg)
Widow looking for answers after Quebec man dies in Texas Ironman competition
The widow of a Quebec man who died competing in an Ironman competition is looking for answers.
A new Canadian study of 4.8 million people says a daily alcoholic drink isn't likely to send anyone to an early grave, nor will it offer any of the health benefits touted by previous studies, even if it is organic red wine.
Low and moderate drinkers have similar mortality rates to those who abstain entirely, researchers from the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research explain. On the other hand, women who enjoy more than one standard drink per day are at least 20 per cent likely to die prematurely than female non-drinkers.
"In this updated systematic review and meta-analysis, daily low or moderate alcohol intake was not significantly associated with all-cause mortality risk," the study's authors write, "while increased risk was evident at higher consumption levels, starting at lower levels for women than men."
Published Friday in the medical journal JAMA Open Network, the study comes on the heels of a report by the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) that said Canadians should have no more than two alcoholic drinks per week in order to minimize the health risks associated with alcohol.
Lead researcher Dr. Jinhui Zhao and his co-authors wanted to better understand the link between alcohol and all-cause death, including theories advanced by previous studies that a small amount of alcohol can provide health benefits, and that "moderate drinkers" live longer and are less likely to die from heart disease than non-drinkers.
They reviewed 107 studies from between 1980 and 2021 involving 4.8 million people and found that consuming more than one standard drink per day raised the risk of premature death significantly, especially for women.
In Canada, a standard drink is defined as a 341-ml bottle of five per cent alcohol beer or cider, a 142-ml glass of 12 per cent alcohol wine or a 43-ml shot glass of 40 per cent alcohol spirits. Each standard drink contains 13.45 grams of pure alcohol.
"There was a significantly increased risk of all-cause mortality among female drinkers who drank 25 or more grams per day and among male drinkers who drank 45 or more grams per day,” the authors wrote. "Low-volume alcohol drinking was not associated with protection against death from all causes."
When they looked at previous studies that suggest people who drink a little are less likely to die early or from heart disease than people who don't drink at all, they found the evidence was skewed by systematic bias.
"For example, light and moderate drinkers are systematically healthier than current abstainers on a range of health indicators unlikely to be associated with alcohol use, (like) dental hygiene, exercise routines, diet, weight (and) income," they wrote.
Meanwhile, abstainers may be statistically more likely to experience poorer health, since many have had to stop – or never started drinking in the first place – for health reasons. They also found most of the studies they reviewed overrepresented older white men in their data, failing to account for the experiences of women, racialized people and people from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.
When Zhao and his colleagues adjusted the data to account for these variables, they couldn't find any evidence that drinking a low or moderate amount of alcohol had any kind of positive effect on life expectancy or heart health.
"Our meta-analysis… found no significant protective associations of occasional or moderate drinking with all-cause mortality, and an increased risk of all-cause mortality for drinkers who drank 25 g or more," the authors conclude.
"Future longitudinal studies in this field should attempt to minimize lifetime selection biases by not including former and occasional drinkers in the reference group, and by using younger cohorts more representative of drinkers in the general population at baseline."
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction or mental health matters, the following resources may be available to you:
This story has been updated to clarify that women who enjoy more than one standard drink per day are at least 20 per cent more likely than female non-drinkers to die prematurely.
The widow of a Quebec man who died competing in an Ironman competition is looking for answers.
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
The world is seeing a near breakdown of international law amid flagrant rule-breaking in Gaza and Ukraine, multiplying armed conflicts, the rise of authoritarianism and huge rights violations in Sudan, Ethiopia and Myanmar, Amnesty International warned Wednesday as it published its annual report.
A photographer who worked for Megan Thee Stallion said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that he was forced to watch her have sex, was unfairly fired soon after and was abused as her employee.
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
The Senate passed legislation Tuesday that would force TikTok's China-based parent company to sell the social media platform under the threat of a ban, a contentious move by U.S. lawmakers that's expected to face legal challenges.
People living near a wildfire burning about 15 kilometres southwest of Peace River are being told to evacuate their homes.
The U.S. Senate has passed US$95 billion in war aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, sending the legislation to President Joe Biden after months of delays and contentious debate over how involved the United States should be in foreign wars.
A Winnipeg man said a single date gone wrong led to years of criminal harassment, false arrests, stress and depression.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a Grade 4 student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.