Globally, alcohol is estimated to be the seventh-leading risk factor in 2016 in both DALYs (4·2% [3·7–4·6]) and deaths (5·2% [4·4–6·0]). Previous studies have noted the possibility that the preventive effects of alcohol might have been overstated due to selection bias and choice of the reference population.2, 54, 55, 56 Our findings lend further credence to these hypotheses; with the exception of IHD, our results show either a minor or non-significant preventive effect for causes previously estimated to have large preventive effects. Further, our analysis noted a much larger risk of neoplasms due to alcohol use than previously reported. Combined with our new data for alcohol use exposure, alcohol use is ranked as one of the leading risk factors, surpassing cholesterol as a share of total DALYs, comparied with previous iterations of GBD.4, 5, 6
