Hand on heart: Wouldn't you be confused if large warning signs with dramatic images of seriously injured people were placed at ski lifts or on mountain hiking trails to highlight the dangers of sporting activities? Something along the lines of: "Sport can cause serious injuries or even kill you." Just as absurd as such a warning sign at a ski lift is what certain organizations—first and foremost the World Health Organization (WHO)—are currently planning in their fight against moderate alcohol consumption. Don’t believe me? Let me explain further.

The likelihood that a working person in Switzerland will suffer a leisure-related accident in a given year is between 11 and 13 percent, with 3 to 4.5 percent of those being serious accidents that impose a significant financial and emotional burden on society. Now take a look at recent media headlines on alcohol: they induce sheer panic. A favorite reference is the Lancet study from 2020, which claims that even a single alcoholic drink per day (such as a glass of wine) could be dangerous and increase the relative risk of alcohol-related illnesses by around 0.5 percent. Unimaginable what might happen if, as a wine lover, I allowed myself four glasses a day.

However, relative and absolute risk are two completely different things. A close reading of the study reveals the following: out of 100,000 non-drinkers, 914 people experienced a health problem in one year. Among 100,000 people who drank a glass of wine daily, the number was four higher. A truly negligible difference, likely within the statistical margin of error. In fact, the actual risk in this often-cited study increases by only 0.004 percent. Exactly. Let that sink in: 0.004 percent—or 1 in 25,000. (By the way, the probability of being struck by lightning in one’s lifetime is between 1 in 15,000 and 1 in 30,000.) Put differently: it is roughly 3,000 times riskier to experience a problem during a leisure activity than to enjoy a daily glass of wine. With two glasses of beer or wine per day, the theoretical probability increases to a staggering 0.063 percent.

One trick used to eliminate the beneficial effects of moderate alcohol consumption on coronary arteries is to include developing or emerging countries in the studies. In a developing country with a high proportion of young people, one is unlikely to find positive cardiovascular effects from alcohol consumption—people there are simply too young to develop such conditions. Instead, they often die prematurely due to poor hygiene, the low quality of alcoholic beverages, or as a result of serious accidents and violence. The Lancet study and many others now treat all countries as a single unit, regardless of their enormous demographic, cultural, and socioeconomic differences.

In this mix of interfering variables and unequal study designs, we end up with the adventurous conclusion that even a single drink is harmful to everyone. Scientifically, such a conflation of vastly different populations and living conditions is indefensible.

Conclusion: Alcohol can be harmful or even deadly when abused—but the same applies to sports. People can also be killed with a kitchen knife or a car. Wanting to ban these items because of that is just as absurd as the current excessive anti-alcohol strategy.