Can you drink 2 pegs of alcohol in a day and be safe? WHO says NO

We often hear that alcohol consumption in moderation might not be that bad for our health. Not only that, there have been studies saying that if you're in good shape, moderate drinking makes you less likely to have a heart attack, stroke, or hardened arteries.

This may have made us think that drinking a few pegs of whiskey or having few beers over the weekend is fine. But, the World Health Organization (WHO) has now published a statement in The Lancet Public Health saying that when it comes to alcohol consumption, there is no safe amount that does not affect health.

The WHO statement: "When we talk about possible so-called safer levels of alcohol consumption or about its protective effects, we are ignoring the bigger picture of alcohol harm in our region and the world. Although it is well established that alcohol can cause cancer, this fact is still not widely known to the public in most countries," Dr Carina Ferreira-Borges, acting Unit Lead for Noncommunicable Disease Management and Regional Advisor for Alcohol and Illicit Drugs in the WHO Regional Office for Europe said.

Need more warnings: Dr Ferreira-Borges said we need cancer-related health information messages on labels of alcoholic beverages, following the example of tobacco products.

• "We need empowered and trained health professionals who would feel comfortable to inform their patients about alcohol and cancer risk, and we need overall wide awareness of this topic in countries and communities," he said.

Risks start from the first drop: WHO said that to identify a "safe" level of alcohol consumption, valid scientific evidence would need to demonstrate that at and below a certain level, there is no risk of illness or injury associated with alcohol consumption.

• The new WHO statement clarifies that currently available evidence cannot indicate the existence of a threshold at which the carcinogenic effects of alcohol "switch on" and start to manifest in the human body.

The less you drink, the safer it is: The WHO said that it doesn't matter how much you drink, the risk to the drinker's health starts from the first drop of any alcoholic beverage. The global health body said that the only thing that it can say for sure is that the more you drink, the more harmful it is, or, the less you drink, the safer it is.

It is the alcohol, not the beverage: WHO said that Ethanol (alcohol) causes cancer through biological mechanisms as the compound breaks down in the body, which means that any beverage containing alcohol, regardless of its price and quality, poses a risk of developing cancer.