Alcohol Alert - September 2022

How far can we trust the latest Global Burden of Disease study?🎵 Podcast feature 🎵In the summer, the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) group published a study that looked at alcohol consumption and harm, and suggested older people may benefit from drinking, while people under 40 should not drink.This conclusion was lambasted by a number of alcohol researchers, including Colin Angus in an IAS blog and Professor Tim Stockwell in a Movendi blog, who criticised the study’s analysis and the data the conclusions were based on.In our podcast we spoke to Professor Stockwell about the major issues of the study, including:- Why the study has reported 1 million fewer alcohol deaths compared to its 2018 publication, despite no fall in global alcohol consumption- How various biases throw off studies and suggest health benefits of alcohol- Whether we should now distrust the GBD group- The difficulties of understanding risk This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit instalcstud.substack.com