Is any amount of alcohol dangerous?
An expert untangles the conflicting headlines
Levels <[email protected]>
Share
Levels promotes an episode of A Whole New Level discussing the health effects of alcohol. The episode features Dr. Tim Naimi, an alcohol epidemiologist, who explains the contradictory science surrounding alcohol consumption. He highlights five key takeaways, including the risks associated with alcohol and the idea that less consumption is better.
What the raw message shows
From the headers
- Sent with
-
SendGrid See it in the headers
Across Levels's email
- Sends
- About 3 a week
- DMARC
-
Enforced, reject
Mail failing authentication is refused.
The copy
397 words · about 2 min to read · 2 buttons
Is any amount of alcohol dangerous?
What research shows about alcohol’s health effects—and why it's so confusing
Every few years, the story on alcohol flips: a glass of wine is good for your heart, then it isn't, then a new report says maybe it is again. Dr. Tim Naimi has spent his career trying to explain why. He's an alcohol epidemiologist who directs the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research, worked on alcohol at the CDC, and chaired a federal panel working on the latest U.S. dietary guidelines.
In a recent episode of A Whole New Level, Naimi explains why the science looks so contradictory, and what actually holds up once you dig in. Spoiler alert: There's no reason to drink more than you do now.
Button The truth about alcohol →
Five Key Takeaways
1. Where the evidence is uncontested, alcohol doesn't come out well.
It's a Group 1 carcinogen linked to at least seven cancers, and it's harmful to heart failure risk, atrial fibrillation, and blood pressure. Most of the real debate is confined to a narrow question: how much a very small amount matters.
2. The "healthy drinker" effect was largely a data problem.
Studies compared drinkers to a "non-drinker" group that was quietly full of former drinkers, many of whom had quit because they were already getting sick. Correct for that misclassification and the apparent benefit of moderate drinking mostly disappears.
3. A real randomized trial of alcohol has never happened.
The latest large attempt, an $80 million study called MACH15, collapsed in 2018 after ties between the investigators and the alcohol industry came out.
4. Two recent federal reports looked contradictory, but weren't really.
One modeled alcohol-specific deaths and found meaningful risk starting around six drinks a week. The other looked at all-cause mortality and grouped light and moderate drinkers together, which flattered the results. Their core conclusions actually lined up.
5. The takeaway holds up: less is better, and don't start for your health.
Risk climbs with each drink, roughly one in four people who start drinking will develop an alcohol use disorder, and at 14-plus drinks a week the odds of an alcohol-related death approach one in 25.
Button Listen to the full conversation →
Looking to understand more about your metabolic health?
Explore our health news and advice site, Metabolic Insights
228 Park Ave South, PMB 63877, New York, NY 10003
The words as text: what a screen reader can follow, and all there is when images don't load.
What the headers say
Read from the message's own headers, as it arrived.
- Came from
-
o6.m.dripemail2.com
· 167.89.79.139
SendGrid's sending servers
- SPF
- Pass for drip.levels.com
- DKIM
-
- Pass signed by levels.com
- DMARC
-
Pass for levels.com
Policy: reject
- Unsubscribe
-
One-click
Meets the Gmail and Yahoo rule for bulk senders.
- Complaints
- No feedback-loop header
Show all 17 headers Hide the headers
As received, minus the delivery side: the archive's own addresses show as [recipient], its mail servers as [receiver], signatures are left out and unsubscribe links trimmed to their host.
Route
- Received
- from o6.m.dripemail2.com (167.89.79.139) by [receiver] (cloudflare) id l6Jmp6eg5hMK for <[recipient]>; Thu, 24 Sep 2026 16:00:58 +0000
- Received
- by recvd-5bf966b774-b6hvw with SMTP id recvd-5bf966b774-b6hvw-1-6AB54191-8 2026-09-24 15:28:17.097347757 +0000 UTC m=+65678.957378418
- Received
- from MTMxMTA3NDc (unknown) by geopod-ismtpd-50 (SG) with HTTP id e0HEXXVpRRyb2G3vRlhwYg Thu, 24 Sep 2026 15:28:17.086 +0000 (UTC)
Authentication
- Received-SPF Authentication result
- pass ([receiver]: domain of [recipient]@drip.levels.com designates 167.89.79.139 as permitted sender) receiver=[receiver]; client-ip=167.89.79.139; envelope-from="[recipient]@drip.levels.com"; helo=o6.m.dripemail2.com;
- Authentication-Results Authentication result
- [receiver]; dkim=pass header.d=levels.com header.s=s1 header.b=CBGFdhxS; dmarc=pass header.from=levels.com policy.dmarc=reject; spf=none ([receiver]: no SPF records found for [email protected]) smtp.helo=o6.m.dripemail2.com; spf=pass ([receiver]: domain of [recipient]@drip.levels.com designates 167.89.79.139 as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom=[recipient]@drip.levels.com; arc=none smtp.remote-ip=167.89.79.139
Platform
- X-Drip-SendingAccount
- 4080355
- X-SG-EID Identifies SendGrid
- u001.79kJZC85z/WE9t9nOmpiHosf7qU1Au+mrKy3jytIn8sMbSWRTgBdv9q1OykY6JKW2c/uAY0ZV8eFg575AoTf+wlo6rFNIvPvk7i/y2IZYSYYvCE8F5jKoJBEl6YoPvFNglLLL7FmMfe9JpLpAYf9hUC3izcX18zk6Uhpa39I34ake/RinMPsf+A0A2kBZxKA5wQt/uLxafKylRpHqAQHFairmkKOy5+m60iR++BAoy4=
- X-SG-ID Identifies SendGrid
- u001.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
- X-Entity-ID
- u001.dEl2Z4sQ4dqI57TjhSSBBA==
Unsubscribe and feedback
- List-Unsubscribe
- <mailto:…@unsubscribe.dripemail3.com>, <https://unsubscribe.dripemail3.com/…>
- List-Unsubscribe-Post
- List-Unsubscribe=One-Click
Message
- Content-Type
- multipart/alternative; boundary=510878a532cd5c814c9c213b09b4aed9707edcb70aaca010a9a4bab68e8b
- Date
- Thu, 24 Sep 2026 16:00:00 +0000 (UTC)
- From
- Levels <[email protected]>
- Mime-Version
- 1.0
- Message-ID
- <e0HEXXVpRRyb2G3vRlhwYg@geopod-ismtpd-50>
- Subject
- Is any amount of alcohol dangerous?
More from Levels
All 31 emailsSimilar campaigns from other brands
Different brands running the same play. Compare any of them side by side.
Archived for reference and commentary. Levels, its logos and content are the property of their respective owners; Inbox Archive claims no affiliation and has disabled all links. If you own this content and would like it removed, get in touch.