Scientifically tenable or missionary zealots at work?
It is a complex issue, but certainly not a question of right or wrong, more a question of personal taste and well-being: above all, we should be wary of generalizations and ultimately appeal to the common sense and responsibility of each individual.
We are talking about dealing with alcohol and alcoholic beverages.
What is certain is that humans have been confronted with the consumption of alcohol since time immemorial. Eating fresh or preserved food inevitably means that people consume alcohol with food and drink in varying concentrations. Many foods contain alcohol by nature. You would have to give up a lot of things if you wanted to avoid alcohol completely. At times, people may even have consumed considerable quantities of it for their diet. The different alcohol tolerance of different ethnic groups is no coincidence.
What’s more, the human body is capable of processing alcohol to an astonishing degree.
A large proportion of alcohol is metabolized in the liver. A person of normal weight is able to metabolize around 240 grams of alcohol per day due to their physiology. This is due to the enzymatic reactions that are responsible for the breakdown or conversion of alcohol in the body. No one doubts this from a scientific point of view.
Consuming 240 grams of alcohol a day will certainly be too much in the long run. The harmful side effects of such a level of consumption would quickly become apparent. So far, so good, the producers of alcoholic beverages have also been propagating the responsible use and moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages for a long time.
Until now, about one tenth less was considered a safe daily amount for men and half less for women.
That is 20 to 25 grams of alcohol per day for men and 10 to 12 grams of alcohol per day for women. These quantities were previously regarded as a recommendation for moderate consumption.
The consumption of alcoholic beverages in Germany is currently at this level, provided one is able to correctly calculate the alcohol content and quantities consumed. This moderate consumption was previously also supported and recommended by the German Nutrition Society (DGE ), which has now revised its view in a new position paper.
The DGE now recommends avoiding alcohol altogether according to the motto “No safe level”, thus adopting the argumentation of a WHO study, which turns out to be quite a hodgepodge of different, sometimes contradictory studies, which the DGE has enriched with its own information for its position paper.
The DGE admits that there are currently no current representative figures for the average intake of alcoholic beverages in Germany. But then quotes a figure published in 2008 from the National Nutrition Survey II (NVS II, 2005-2007), which presumably has little to do with the reality of today’s consumption.
This raises the question of whether the flat adoption of this recommendation by the DGE is scientifically tenable or whether it is more the result of a contemporary fashion trend.
In a separate position paper published at the end of October 2024, representatives of the German wine and brewing industry point out that the DGE’s recommendation is not scientifically tenable and that the DGE itself doubts the validity of the studies used.
I think that the recommendation of moderate consumption of alcoholic drinks can continue to apply in the future and that everyone should decide for themselves whether they want to consume alcoholic drinks or not.
By claiming that any consumption of alcoholic beverages is harmful, the DGE is joining the ranks of missionary zealots.
The position paper of the wine and brewing industry is definitely worth reading and certainly helps to make the discussion more objective. The paper, which is packed with references, can be found here: https://deutscher-weinbauverband.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Verbaendeposition-No-safe-level-Okt.-2024.pdf
Hermann Pilz