The researchers looked at associations between alcohol consumption and clinical outcomes in a prospective cohort of countries at different economic levels in five continents.
The data came from 12 countries participating in a prospective cohort study of individuals aged 35-70 years.
The high-income countries (HICs) were Sweden and Canada; upper-middle-income countries (UMICs) were Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Poland, South Africa, and Turkey; lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) were China and Colombia; and LICs were India and Zimbabwe.
The study, published in The Lancet journal. Included 114,970 adults, of whom 12,904 (11 per cent) were from HICs, 24,408 (21 per cent) were from UMICs, 48,845 (43 per cent) were from LMICs, and 28,813 (25 per cent) were from LICs.
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Although current drinking was associated with a 24 per cent reduced risk of heart attack, there was no reduction in risk of mortality or stroke.
Current drinking was associated with a 51 per cent increased risk of alcohol-related cancers - of the mouth, oesophagus, stomach, colorectum, liver, breast, ovary, and head and neck - and a 29 per cent increased risk of injury in current drinkers.
For a combination of all reported outcomes, there was no overall benefit from current alcohol use.
High alcohol intake and heavy episodic drinking were both associated with significant increases in risk of overall mortality, researchers found.
For higher-income countries (HICs/UMICs combined), current drinking was associated with a 16 per cent reduced risk of this combined outcome, while for lower-income countries (LMICs/LICs combined) current drinking was associated with a 38 per cent increased risk.
"Our data support the call to increase global awareness of the importance of harmful use of alcohol and the need to further identify and target the modifiable determinants of harmful alcohol use," said lead author Andrew Smyth of the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI), McMaster University in Canada.