Alcohol ‘is less risky for middle classes’

DRINKERS are constantly warned of the potentially devastating health risks posed by as little as one glass of wine in an evening.

But although some experts say there is no safe level of alcohol, it seems that this advice may not apply to the middle classes.

New research says that the richer you are, the more likely it is you can drink and not suffer as badly as those less well-off. Affluent middleclass drinkers tend to lead otherwise healthier lives than their poorer counterparts, says a report in the journal BMC Public Health.

Wealthier drinkers are less likely to smoke, be overweight or have a poor diet – traits more associated with people on lower incomes.

This means that their bodies are, as a result, more resilient to the impact of alcohol.

The researchers also found that the other factors of unhealthiness do not simply add up on top of each other, but potentially have a ‘multiplicative’ effect on the body when mixed with alcohol.

The findings – drawn from telephone interviews with 6,000 adults – suggest that the risks of alcohol can be reduced by maintaining an otherwise fit and healthy lifestyle.

Explaining the ‘multiplicative’ effect, the researchers said those who smoke, are overweight or live unhealthy lifestyles may suffer greater harms from similar levels of alcohol consumption than those with otherwise healthy lifestyles. Mark Bellis, of Bangor University in Wales, said: ‘When you are overweight you do not just get the risk of being overweight… you get those added and effectively doubled as well. The effects may be even greater when you add three or four types of [unhealthy] behaviour in.

‘We need on an individual level for people to understand that being overweight and having an unhealthy lifestyle may carry additional risk when you’re drinking alcohol.

‘This in no way suggests that you can avoid the risks of alcohol by changing the other things in your life. What you can do is bring down some of the overlap and multiplicative effects.’