Is Lancet alcohol study brewers’ “glyphosate moment”?

At the end of August 2018, media around the world ran headlines screaming “alcohol is bad for you” – or something to this effect. This message was based on a study published in the British medical journal The Lancet, which claims to be the definitive study on the benefits and dangers of drinking.

As is often the case, the study’s results are much less newsy and much more measured. But in years to come the study and the ensuing headlines could swing public opinion against alcohol. In fact, taken together they could turn into brewers’ “glyphosate moment”.

The controversy over glyphosate has been raging for years. Although scientific evidence is divided over whether the weedkiller causes cancer in humans or not, most people in Europe seem to believe that it does, so much so that EU officials in a narrow vote in November 2017 only gave it another five-year lease. A US court meanwhile ruled that Monsanto, the company behind the weedkiller, should pay USD 289 million in damages for causing cancer.

The Lancet study on alcohol has its limitations, it was pointed out, because it is only a meta-analysis, or a merging of data from hundreds of observational studies. The researchers combined all this data into mathematical models to predict the harm from alcohol worldwide.

They found that, overall, harms increased with each additional drink per day, and that the overall harms were lowest at zero. This is how headlines are being made.

The trouble with meta-analyses is that by compiling observational study on top of observational study, you only achieve statistical significance without improving clinical evidence.

Undeterred, many health officials will interpret the study as it fits their interests. And that will be the real problem for brewers.