What we know about alcohol risk in 2026 with Sinclair Carr and Jürgen Rehm

In this episode, Dr Tsen Vei Lim talks to Sinclair Carr and Dr Jürgen Rehm. Sinclair is a PhD candidate at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in the US, and Jürgen is a Senior Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Canada. The interview covers Sinclair and Jürgen’s updated review of the relationship between dimensions of alcohol consumption and the burden of disease.

• How do we determine causality? [01:29]
• What is Mendelian randomisation? [02:54]
• How do we use genes to explore causality of alcohol consumption in later life? [04:40]
• The context behind this study [06:05]
• The headline findings from the review [09:28]
• How can we mitigate bias as researchers? [14:18]
• How Sinclair and Jürgen envisage the findings to effect current alcohol policy [17:20]
• The barriers to enacting an effective public health policy for alcohol [20:28]
• Refining the methods for next steps in this review [23:50]

About Tsen Vei Lim: Tsen Vei is an academic fellow supported by the Society for the Study of Addiction, currently based at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge. His research integrates computational modelling, experimental psychology, and neuroimaging to understand the neuropsychological basis of addictive behaviours. He holds a PhD in Psychiatry from the University of Cambridge (UK) and a BSc in Psychology from the University of Bath (UK).

About Sinclair Carr: Sinclair is a PhD candidate in Population Health Sciences – Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, US. His research focuses on drawing causal inferences from large observational databases, with two aims: to estimate the effects of pharmacologic and lifestyle interventions, such as alcohol use, on cardiovascular and other health outcomes; and to transport these effect estimates to target populations most relevant for clinical and policy decision-making. He hopes these efforts ultimately help improve the prevention of chronic diseases.

About Jürgen Rehm: Jürgen is Senior Scientist in the Institute for Mental Health Policy Research and in the Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). He is Professor and was the Inaugural Chair of Addiction Policy in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, and he also holds other professorships and positions in Canada, Germany and Spain. His work has been awarded with numerous awards and prizes, most importantly, the Jellinek Memorial Award (2003), the European Addiction Research Award (2017) and the (Inaugural) Kettil Bruun Society Award for Advancement of International Research Collaboration (2021).

Original article: A review of the relationship between dimensions of alcohol consumption and the burden of disease: 2026 update including Mendelian randomisation studies https://doi.org/10.1111/add.70435

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Music provided by Jack Shakespeare.

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