In a recent study, people who reported not drinking any alcohol over several years were absent from work due to illness more often than low-risk drinkers. The findings are published in Addiction.
or the study, which included adults from Finland, France, and the United Kingdom, women who reported drinking 1-11 units and men who reported drinking 1-34 units of alcohol per week were the reference group. (One drink/alcohol unit was estimated as 12 g of alcohol.) Compared with them, women and men who reported no alcohol use had a higher risk of sickness absence due to mental disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, diseases of the digestive system, and diseases of the respiratory system. Women who reported alcohol consumption of >11 weekly units and men who reported alcohol consumption of >34 units per week were at increased risk of absence due to injury or poisoning.
“Our findings demonstrate that the U-shaped association—higher risk of sickness absence among both abstainers and average drinkers—relates to a different set of diagnosis of sickness absence for the two groups,” said lead author Dr. Jenni Ervasti, of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health.
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