This is the Guardian. Human's relationship with alcohol goes back a long, long way.

7,000 years ago, I think there's evidence from Syria of remains of equipment used to make beer.

Over the centuries it's helped us bond and celebrate it's been used in rituals as an

antiseptic and even as an ancient form of payment.

Throughout all that time we've also been aware of the dangers of drinking.

There's quite early accounts, for example, in Egypt of drinking. There's quite early accounts for example in Egypt of problems being experienced

of people becoming addicted to alcohol, experiencing health issues.

This double-sided personality of alcohol has had a split.

There's a nice quote from ancient Greece. I think it's Pliny the elder who wrote that medical opinion is divided as to whether alcohol

benefits more people than it harms or words to that effect.

And modern science hasn't made the picture clearer.

Just as we're told by experts that drinking can cause cancer, heart and liver disease,

a pile of studies show that moderate drinking and knocking back a glass of wine a night can actually be beneficial.

I think it's driving people mad because they probably say we'll get it together what's going on here.

We hear one thing one day and one the other.

But now researchers have gone back into the data, carefully scrutinizing it,

and have found that despite what many of us, including myself here, would like to believe,

there is no rosy message when it comes to drinking. So today on Science Weekly we're asking, why did scientists think boosing could be good for us?

Where were the studies going wrong? And how should we

understand the risks of drinking alcohol? From the Guardian I'm Madeline Finley, and this is Science Weekly.

I just want to fill up my glass of water, because is going to take a little while and it's hot here.

10 seconds, hang on.

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