Is alcohol shortening your life? An online tool built in B.C. will tell you

globalnews.ca:

Dry January and amid growing interest in the “sober curious” movement, researchers at the University of Victoria have unveiled a new tool to gauge the health impacts of alcohol.The new Know Alcohol calculator was developed by researchers at UVic’s Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research (CISUR).The tool allows people to calculate personalized estimates of the potential health risks from their own alcohol consumption, along with the possible benefits of drinking less.The calculator is built on the health science used to generate Canada’s Guidance on Alcohol and Health, and asks individuals to enter their age, sex and an estimate of how much they drink in a week.“When Canada’s Guidance on Alcohol and Health was released two years ago, it started the first national conversation on alcohol consumption,” said Dr. Tim Naimi, director of CISUR.“We wanted to take it a step further and make a tool that showed people personalized results so they could make evidence-informed decisions about their drinking habits.”Using the personalized inputs, the tool returns a variety of data, including the increased risk of diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and injury.It also generates estimates such as the risk of dying early from alcohol, the average amount of lifetime lost per drink, and a health risk comparison to cigarettes.Naimi said the researchers didn’t just rely on mathematical models to craft the tool.