User:7khairat/sandbox

Moderate drinking is often promoted as something that is ‘healthy’, essentially because of its links with a reduced risk of heart disease. One problem with this epidemiological research, however, is that it sometimes fails to consider confounding factors that can cause the drinking of alcohol to appear healthier than it actually is. For instance, non-drinkers at increased risk of heart disease may be reformed alcoholics, or may have stopped drinking because they’ve been diagnosed with heart disease. A better assessment would include only lifelong teetotallers in the non-drinking group. Another major flaw in much alcohol research is that it has often focused only on heart disease. Alcohol has been linked with adverse effects on health including an increased risk of cancer. It makes sense, therefore, to assess alcohol’s relationship with overall risk of death. When researchers have focused on overall mortality, a slightly different picture from the image of alcohol being a ‘healthy tipple’ emerges. One study found that in men up to the age of thirty-four, the optimal amount of alcohol to drink was none at all.30 In this study there seemed to be some benefits from alcohol consumption later in life – the optimal intake being about 1 unit a day. As a sometime drinker myself, I take no satisfaction in imparting this news, but it seems that the ‘benefits’ of drinking alcohol have been overstated.

Drink Less Without Sacrifice
While I think the ‘benefits’ of alcohol have been somewhat overplayed, I am also of the belief that not everything that passes our lips need be explicitly healthy. There are obviously reasons for consuming foodstuffs that have nothing to do with health. However, the fact remains that any more than very moderate drinking is likely to jeopardize weight-loss efforts and may harm health, so taking steps to control alcohol consumption without any sense of sacrifice or deprivation makes sense.

One tactic that works well is to match each alcoholic drink (e.g. glass of wine) with a glass of water. This usually leads to less wine being drunk, and also dilutes any negative effects alcohol may have. Any additional water drunk here is likely to be broadly beneficial to the body, too.

Another way of containing alcohol consumption is to avoid dehydration and thirst before starting drinking. It stands to reason that if alcohol is being drunk, more will be consumed if you’re thirsty.

While you’re avoiding thirst, I advise avoiding hunger, too. I’ve found this to be a prime driver of drinking, particularly early in the evening. Even unconsciously, many individuals use alcohol as a replacement for food when they are hungry, particularly if their blood sugar level has taken a dive.

Red wine, more than any other form of alcohol, has often been recommended as ‘healthy’. Much scientific research has been focused on a constituent in red grapes known as ‘resveratrol’, the actions of which in the body would help to explain the suggested benefits of red wine for the heart. However, a close look at the evidence reveals that wine drinkers, compared to those who generally drink beer and spirits, for example, tend to have healthier diets and to smoke less, too.31–33 These studies actually show it’s not the red wine per se, but these other factors associated with drinking red wine, that probably account for its apparent ‘benefits’.