So Are 2 Drinks A Day Really Too Many?

(WBUR) - A lot of us are drinking too much, and on Tuesday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called us on it.

More than eight drinks a week for women and 15 drinks a week for men can get you into trouble, the CDC warned.

But that doesn't seem to jibe with other studies that found that drinking alcohol makes for better heart health, several Shots commenters noted. Shana Cuddy wrote:

"Interestingly, in another NPR article they say that moderate drinkers are healthier overall than folks who don't drink at all, and they define 'moderate drinker' as someone who has 3 or less drinks per day. This would be 21 drinks per week for women, which this story claims is well over twice the safe limit."

That study, which found that Europeans who drank zero to three glasses of wine daily had better cardiovascular health, didn't prove that it was the wine that made the difference. It could be that people who drink moderately are healthier to begin with. And there haven't been any randomized controlled trials to find out.

As a result, the American Heart Association says it "does not recommend drinking wine or any other form of alcohol to get these potential benefits."

Then what about the weekly limits? Many of our readers thought they seemed pretty darned skimpy. To find out how the CDC came up with them, we talked with Lela McKnight-Eily, a health scientist at the CDC who is the lead author on the new study.

"It's a daily average," McKnight-Eily told Shots. The average is based on population studies, which show that people who drink more than that have an increased risk of heart disease, breast cancer and other health problems. "There's no level that's not at risk," she said.

That takes a bit of the shine off that glass of wine while cooking dinner, especially since if I indulge every day, I'm close to the upper end of the moderate drinking zone.