An analysis of 600,000 drinkers found that drinking five to 10 alcoholic drinks a week was likely to shorten a person's life by up to six months.
This increases with higher alcohol consumption, with those who have 18 drinks or more losing up to five years of life.
Experts said it challenged the idea that light drinking was good for us.
Scientists, who compared the health and drinking habits of alcohol drinkers in 19 countries, calculated how much life a person could expect to lose if they drank the same way for the rest of their lives from the age of 40.
They found the upper safe limit of drinking before there was an increased risk of death was around 12.5 units a week - the equivalent of about five pints of beer or five 175ml glasses of above-average strength wine.
But they said drinking at all levels increased the risk of cardiovascular illnesses.
For every 12.5 units of alcohol people drank a week it raised the risk of:
- Stroke by 14%
- Fatal hypertensive disease by 24%
- Heart failure by 9%
- Fatal aortic aneurysm by 15%
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