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Background: Alcohol is associated with all-cause mortality increase. However, when this increase takes place has not been clearly established. The objective of this study was to establish the levels of alcohol consumption that can be considered low risk for overall mortality., Methods: Systematic review of cohort studies published since 2014 that established a relationship between general mortality and alcohol consumption in the general population. Those studies not conducted in countries with Spain socio-cultural environment and those that present conflicts of interest were excluded., Results: The median of alcohol consumption (in grams) from which mortality increased was 23-25 g/day. Differentiating by sex, these values were 20 g/day in women and 24 g/day in men. The minimum value of the median from which an increase in mortality was observed was 17-21 g/day of alcohol; 12 g/day in women and 20 g/day in men., Conclusions: If we take into account caution principle, taking more conservative levels of average alcohol consumption from which an increase in mortality was observed, low-risk consumption should be 20 g/day in men and 10 g/day in women, assuming that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption.

"Hidden populations" are difficult to identify because they have stigmatizing or illegal characteristics. For that reason, determining their size or prevalence in certain contexts is complicated. In those populations, traditional or direct methods, as population surveys, do not usually serve for this purpose, but indirect methods, based on incomplete data sources, can be useful.This work completes the original article published in Revista Española de Salud Pública in 2017: "Indirect methods to estimate hidden populations". Different methods are exposed, showing their indications and bias. To make an estimation as real as possible it is necessary to evaluate carefully the data available and analyze the risk of bias.

The aim of this paper is to describe the available methods to quantify the main health and social harms related to alcohol consumption in the population and to provide recommendations to improve research on these issues. Methods using individual and aggregate level data for the study of the relationship between alcohol consumption and related harms are taken into account, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. Methodological aspects to quantify the magnitude and trends of alcohol-related and alcohol-attributable mortality, including alcohol dependence, acute intoxication, injury, violent behavior, disease burden and social costs are widely considered. There are often discrepancies between the study results mainly due to the difficulty of adequately measuring alcohol consumption and its relationship to health conditions. In the future we must strengthen research on the effect of drinking patterns and context in chronic diseases using appropriate controls, clarify the relationship of alcohol use disorders and other mental disorders , improve the measurement of alcohol intoxication when acute problems occurs, periodically quantify the disease burden and social costs attributable to alcohol (using country- specific attributable fractions) and develop valid and comparable methods and indicators for monitoring alcohol-related harm.

Alcohol affects the brain and most organs and systems, and its use is related to a large number of health problems. These include mental, neurological, digestive, cardiovascular, endocrine, metabolic, perinatal, cancerous, and infectious diseases, as well as intentional and non-intentional injuries. Physiopathological mechanisms still remain unraveled, though direct toxicity of ethanol and its metabolites, nutritional deficit and intestinal microbial endotoxin absorption have been suggested, all of which would be further modulated by use patterns and genetic and environmental factors. Individually it is difficult to precisely predict who will or will not suffer health consequences. At population level several disorders show a linear or exponential dose-response relationship, as is the case with various cancer types, hepatopathies, injuries, and probably risky behaviors such as unsafe sex. Other health problems such as general mortality in people above 45 years of age, ischemic disease or diabetes mellitus show a J-shaped relationship with alcohol use. The overall effect of alcohol on the global burden of disease is highly detrimental, despite the possible beneficial effect on cardiovascular disease. Large differences are found by country, age, gender, socioeconomic and other factors. Disease burden is mostly related with alcohol's capacity to produce dependence and with acute intoxication. Often alcohol also produces negative consequences for other people (violence, unattended family or work duties, etc) which are generally not taken into account when evaluating burden of disease. The aim of this study was to describe the main alcohol-related social and health harms, as well as their generating mechanisms, using secondary data sources.