Extensive research suggests that moderate alcohol consumption lowers the risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD) by 20%. However, this benefit requires serious qualification: it does not cover nonatherosclerotic CVD; it applies to no more than two drinks daily in men and one in women; it is confined to those aged 60 and over with, or at increased risk of, atherosclerotic CVD; and even in this category, it is not so clear-cut as to warrant recommending therapeutic use of alcohol in abstainers. Elsewhere, in the population at large, the benefit-risk ratio even in strictly medical terms is resoundingly negative, notably in women, due to greater bioavailability and the doseresponse association with breast cancer, and in younger adults in whom any level of alcohol consumption may increase coronary calcification....