Dietary and lifestyle habits of drinkers with preference for alcoholic beverage: does it really matter for public health? A review of the evidence

George Sandeman,Nadia Frittella,Patrizia Restani,Rena I Kosti,Pierre-Louis Teissedre,Demosthenes B Panagiotakos,Barbara Iasiello,Chiara Di Lorenzo

doi:10.20870/oeno-one.2021.55.4.4757

Abstract

Although the detrimental effects of heavy drinking in terms of health are well-documented in the literature, there are inconsistent findings regarding the safety of light-to-moderate alcohol consumption. In particular, little is still known about the consumption of specific alcoholic beverages in combination with dietary habits and lifestyle, which in turn could influence health status. Thus, the aim of this review is to summarise and critically evaluate the evidence of a relationship between preference for alcoholic beverages and consumer dietary and lifestyle habits. A literature search retrieved 3,887 articles. By removing duplicates and articles which were not relevant, the final number of articles was 26. The adherence to a healthier diet and lifestyle was generally observed in light-to-moderate alcohol consumers, especially when wine was the preferred beverage. Considering the potentially strong impact of drinking patterns on health and the risk of developing chronic diseases, the data summarised in this review highlight that alcoholic beverage preferences, drinking patterns, dietary patterns and lifestyle should be studied together. Any future epidemiological studies should analyse the relationship between alcohol consumption and the abovementioned correlations with respect to impact on health.

Highlights

Current epidemiological evidence is largely consistent as to the detrimental effects of heavy drinking in terms of health, the public in particular receives inconsistent and confusing message regarding the safety of light-to-moderate alcohol consumption (Kunzmann et al, 2018)
In a SUN (Seguimiento Universidad de Navarra) prospective study, the authors concluded that the effect on mortality of the overall healthy alcoholdrinking pattern is more important than the total quantity of alcohol consumed (Gea et al, 2014), while other studies either suggested that “there were no clear risk thresholds below which lower alcohol consumption stopped being associated with lower disease risk” (Wood et al, 2018) or restricted the beneficial effects to people with no genetic predisposition (Au Yeung et al, 2013)
This study found that the consumption of red wine within the context of a healthy drinking pattern and when consumed at meals was associated with lower risk of mortality and vascular events among regular alcohol drinkers, after adjusting for the effects of average amount consumed (Jani et al, 2021)

Summary

Introduction

Current epidemiological evidence is largely consistent as to the detrimental effects of heavy drinking in terms of health, the public in particular receives inconsistent and confusing message regarding the safety of light-to-moderate alcohol consumption (Kunzmann et al, 2018). In a recent prospective populationbased study, (Schutte et al (2020) highlighted that only wine could be associated with a protective role with regards to ischemic heart disease, whereas the consumption of beer/cider and spirits, even in low levels, was associated with an increased risk for all health outcomes (Schutte et al, 2020). The interpretation of the conclusions of epidemiological studies which examine the effects of alcohol consumption on human health will be unclear, limited and unsustainable, if they are not evaluated from a wider and more holistic perspective. Any discrimination related to type of alcoholic beverage has to be based on more than differences in chemical composition (Osorio-Paz et al, 2019), mainly because choice of beverage type usually reflects a particular lifestyle, which can be defined as healthy, less healthy or even unhealthy

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