It’s been accepted for decades that a glass of wine at dinner can be good for your health. Not so, says a doctor with MU Healthcare. Lucas Buffaloe, M.D., Associate Professor of Clinical Family and Community Medicine, told Missourinet that the healthiest level of alcohol use is zero.
“I know that a lot of people will be disappointed to hear that there really are no health benefits to alcohol use,” he said. “Now that doesn’t always necessarily mean that you should never drink alcohol. It’s just that you should not use alcohol while under the impression that it’s doing you any good.”
Buffaloe said that past studies stating that a glass of wine with dinner was healthy did not go deep enough on the study participants.
“(Those people) tend to have a lot of other healthy behaviors, so they tend to be people who exercise regularly,” Buffaloe said. “They’re people who eat a relatively healthy diet, and they may have access to more healthcare resources than other people, and those are probably the things that make them healthy.”
He compared drinking the occasional beer or the occasional glass of wine to eating a candy bar or a piece of cake.
“You know, it’s not doing you any good. It’s certainly not healthy for you to have a big slice of chocolate cake at the end of dinner, but at the same time doing that every once in a while, it’s probably not doing you any harm either,” he said.
Buffaloe also said you’re probably not killing brain cells if you have a drink, but you are risking brain damage if you regularly drink heavily or get drunk often.
Copyright © 2025 · Missourinet