Moderation is the key to enjoying alcohol
Every few months you’ll read a cheerful headline about the latest research on alcohol and its health- promoting properties, especially its effect on heart disease.
Just like many of you, journalists really want alcohol to be declared a healthy lifestyle choice. A lot of scientists seem to wish that, too. But wishing doesn’t make it so.
Let’s start with the good news. Alcohol consumption does appear to be associated with lower rates of heart disease, we’ve know about this for more than 100 years. It used to be called the French Paradox, where a high- fat diet washed down with wine appeared to result in low rates of heart disease.
Enthusiastic scientists have been conducting lifestyle survey studies trying to establish what levels of alcohol consumption confer the most benefit, relying on people to remember exactly what they drank and when and then checking to see who died or had a heart attack.
The most convincing evidence that alcohol might have a benefit actually comes from studies of the Mediterranean diet. Drinking a cup of red wine a day while maintaining a healthy lifestyle and eating a diet low in red meat and rich in olive oil, fish, fruit and nuts appears to confer a measurable benefit.
You can thank scientists in the wineproducing nation of Chile for some of the best results on that front.
Let’s remember, though, scientists are experts at creating studies to detect very subtle benefits. If 100 people were to follow all the rules of the Mediterranean diet and wine consumption for 10 years, perhaps one would avoid a heart attack.
By the way, moderation means one drink a day or less. And you can’t save them up and drink them all on Friday night.
If you do, you fall into the much more obvious category of people who are inflicting damage on themselves, what the medical community calls binge drinkers. You may be shocked to learn that you could be deemed a binge drinker after only four or five drinks, depending on your size and gender.
The effects of binge drinking are much easier to discern than the health benefits. Liver damage, brain damage, the list goes on. There really aren’t too many parts of your body that won’t be damaged by excessive alcohol consumption.
Drinking to the point of intoxication increases your risk of stroke by 1,000 per cent. Add to that an increased risk of sudden death and a whole variety of cardiac problems.
Not to be a buzzkill, but drinking alcohol is pretty unlikely to be your best path to long life. Enjoy a glass of wine if you like — it won’t kill you — but don’t pretend it will help you live longer.