Summary: The harmful effects of alcohol are determined by the dose exceeding the level that causes damage to internal organs - the toxicity threshold.To maintain health, the body needs time to recover after drinking alcohol: to do this, you need to drink no more than 170 grams of pure alcohol no more than once every 8 days.The benefit of drinking alcohol in moderate doses may be that the body is mobilized to respond to small doses of harmful substances.Dry red wine and unpasteurized beer contain useful impurities: vitamins, antioxidants, trace elements that are beneficial in small doses and harmful in large doses.
"Drinking too much is harmful, drinking too little is boring."
What is moderate drinking?
About pure ethanol toxicity threshold (that is, the dose that initiates damage to organs) for the liver is 90 g (285 ml of vodka) per day, for the brain - 19 g (60 ml of vodka) per day.This means that a person of the Caucasian race has a healthy liver, kidneys and brain and a body weight of 70 kg.
But it is not difficult to calculate that in an incomplete glass of vodka there are 90 grams of pure alcohol.If you imagine a person drinking a glass of vodka every day, then if he has a genetic predisposition, he will develop alcoholism in six to eight months, and if there is no genetic predisposition, then in three years.Not to mention that after a few months, the alcohol dosage will continue to increase.
The World Health Organization (WHO) believes that weekly consumption of strong alcoholic beverages (more than 25% ethanol) in amounts of more than 150 ml is enough to form alcoholism.
Note: if a person already has viral hepatitis (except hepatitis A) or other chronic liver diseases, the safe dose for the liver in a non-severe period will be reduced by 2 to 3 times.This depends on the mass of the affected part of the organ and the nature of the process.The nature of the process and the degree of damage can only be assessed individually.
So, let's calculate what the drinking regime for this case should be so that the body has time to recover: the body of a healthy person cannot metabolize alcohol in an amount more than 170 g per day (538 ml of vodka). One day of drinking alcohol to restore the liver should be alternated with eight days of abstinence. Therefore, the “acceptable” dose per month would be (31/(1+8))*170 (g) for pure alcohol, which is 586 grams.For comparison: a standard bottle of vodka contains 316 grams of alcohol.
If you drink more than 170 grams of alcohol, then you should increase the interval between drinking - this is the only way to minimize the harm.
To summarize, let's imagine three people drinking once every eight days.Anyone who exceeds the threshold of 170 grams of alcohol will suffer damage to the liver and other organs: kidneys, stomach, pancreas, lungs, retina.Anyone who drinks from 90 to 170 grams is at risk of fatty liver degeneration (and if there is a bile circulation disorder or has had hepatitis, cirrhosis).Anyone who drinks from 19 to 90 grams of pure alcohol will only be harmful to the brain.
With the development of medicine, doctors' advice is gradually changing.A professor of neuropsychology at Imperial College London talked about this interestingly in his book “To Drink or Not to Drink?”(2020).First of all, the harmful effects of alcohol on the liver and cardiovascular system are obvious.More recently, British doctors allowed men to drink up to 21 drinks (standard units of alcohol) and women - up to 14 drinks per week.Of course, drinkers do not particularly try to comply with these limits: after all, if 14 glasses do not harm the liver, then will the harm suddenly begin from a dose two or three times larger?The liver seems uncountable.
In the 21st century, we have learned much more.Rigorous scientific research has confirmed that even very small amounts of alcohol can cause brain damage and increase the risk of cancer.This is much more serious.Scientists have discovered that no amount of alcohol is absolutely safe;we can only talk about doses “with a low level of health risk”.In 2016, British doctors balanced this dose for men and women, because drinking just a small amount of alcohol causes the risk to be the same in both sexes, and if it is exceeded, the risk in men will increase faster.Now people are encouraged to drink no more than 14 glasses per week: this is 1 liter of 4% beer or 6 glasses of 13% alcohol (175 ml glasses).Furthermore, you need to extend this amount of intake throughout the week, not every day.
Is drinking less or drinking moderately better for your health?
For people with white hair, light skin, and light eyes of European descent, if you don't want to give up drinking alcohol, it's better to drink less often (on a short-term drinking regime).Less often means no more than once a month, as the risk of frequent alcoholism develops quickly.For people with dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes, the alcohol regimen is not of fundamental importance, provided that the dosage of ethanol is observed.
How different ethnic groups tolerate alcohol
You should also remember that people with fair skin and dark hair (Mongoloid is a separate issue) develop addiction to regular drinking sessions much more slowly than people with light skin and white hair.
This is due to the fact that black and dark-skinned people carry the genes of people of Southern origin.The peoples of southern origin were formed under conditions of eating a lot of fruits and berries containing a lot of glucose, grape acids, fiber and pectin.In the large intestine, these components undergo alcoholic fermentation, due to which the body has adapted to small doses of ethanol over many generations.
Light-skinned and white-haired people carry the genes of northern peoples, whose consumption of animal foods and vegetables primarily produces lactic acid fermentation.For Northerners, alcohol turned out to be a xenobiotic (foreign substance), and alcoholism was formed through other mechanisms, very similar to addiction to other weak poisons.
Where do humans get the ability to metabolize alcohol?
All mammals have the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase, which breaks down alcohol, but it processes ethyl alcohol with great difficulty, although it reacts much better with other alcohols.If a person inherited exactly this type of biochemistry from animals, then we would not be drawn to drinking alcohol: even the smallest amount of alcohol contained in ripe fruit can cause serious intoxication of the body, not to mention strong drinks.
However, scientists have discovered that our ancestors, after the evolutionary branch of orangutans split from them, but before we parted ways with gorillas and chimpanzees, a special subtype of this enzyme appeared - alcohol dehydrogenase of the “fourth class” (ADH4).A small mutation in our ancestors' genome changed the enzyme's 294th amino acid and enabled their bodies to process overripe fruit that fell to the ground and eliminated the need to climb trees to find underripe fruit.
Thus, 10 million years ago, the ability to process alcohol helped us climb down from trees and start exploring open spaces and then become upright humans.And, as is often the case in evolution, this skill later became useful for completely different purposes.
Benefits of wine - truth or myth
Main Benefits of alcoholic beverages of course come from dry red wine.Dry wine is a fermentation product of grapes (fruit and berry wines are not wine in the strict sense), in which all the sugar in the grapes is fermented into alcohol by microorganisms.The only sugar that is fermented is the sugar found naturally in grapes.Therefore, the ethanol content in dry wine according to regulations does not exceed 13%.
Health benefits mainly come from dry red wine. powerful antioxidant.It helps reduce cholesterol levels and is also 10-20 times more powerful than vitamin E as an antioxidant.Dry red wine contains about 3 times more resveratrol than grape juice from the same grape variety.
For reference, antioxidants are substances that can neutralize so-called active radicals, which are constantly formed in the body and are considered one of the factors that cause aging.However, it should be noted that strong antioxidants are not of absolute benefit: they can both protect against cancer and cause cancer.Their excessive use carries risks.
Dry red wine also contains a number of valuable trace elements, for example: rubidium, has soothing, anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic effects.
It should be noted that an excess of rubidium is more harmful to the body than a deficiency, so daily consumption of dry red in large quantities will not bring any benefit.
A separate article was devoted to the question of whether alcohol is good for the heart or not.Unfortunately, claims that the so-called Mediterranean diet is heart-healthy due to drinking moderate amounts of dry red wine have been proven false.
We also have to disappoint those who believe that taking small doses can prevent atherosclerosis.No, all modern scientific data points to the contrary.A healthy dose of dry red wine is three glasses (about 450 ml) per week.
Is beer good for health?
Another alcoholic beverage that can be said to have potential health benefits can be considered beer.First of all, we are talking about so-called “raw” unpasteurized beer, which was popular in the country 20 years ago and is now very rare.
Beer contains yeast products, including B vitamins, although in quantities that do not meet daily needs;Zinc, a valuable trace element necessary for the synthesis of insulin.The condition of the skin and reproductive system depends on the zinc content.Hops ingredients - natural analogues of benzodiazepine sedatives - have a calming effect, especially when combined with phytoestrogens, plant analogues of female sex hormones during the follicular phase.Hops in moderate doses have a soothing effect.
The limit for a healthy dose of beer is about 600 ml per day.However, daily consumption of beer over several years leads to the formation of addiction in light-skinned, light-eyed, blond-haired people, including due to the sedative content.The development of beer addiction is less noticeable and more difficult to treat than “pure” alcoholism, which, for example, develops due to vodka addiction.
Effects of Hermesis (hormesis)
Regarding other alcoholic beverages, we can say that the benefit of their moderate consumption is the effect of the so-called privacy (hormesis) - a mobilized reaction of the body to harmful effects in small doses.
What kind of common word is this? Let's find out now
The effect is as follows: our body tries to stay the same, regardless of external influences (homeostasis), and therefore, in response to the introduction of toxins, it makes efforts in the opposite direction to the external influence.If the external influence is not too great, a mobilization response will be obtained (common stages of increasing influence are activation, training, stress).That is, you can take any harmful effect of alcohol and change the signs of the opposite effect.
This effect does not appear at moderate but rather small doses of alcohol: no more than 50 ml of vodka (one spoon of alcohol), no more than twice a week.
By the way, this effect exists for any harmful effects and is often studied using radiation.
Does alcohol protect against radiation?
Is it true that alcohol protects against radiation?For example, after a radioactive explosion, there are stories about how to cure radiation sickness with vodka.Is this correct?
Alcohol is an antioxidant.When the body is irradiated, reactive radicals are formed that damage cells.Antioxidants neutralize active radicals.Therefore, although wine has not been oxidized, it has an anti-radiation effect to some extent.The alcohol oxidation products themselves have harmful effects similar to the action of active radicals.It will not be possible to treat radiation sickness that has occurred with vodka (except symptomatically).
That is, the prevention of radiation sickness with vodka can be like this: drink a glass and move through the radiation zone.And at the exit - right under the IV.
Rather, before exposure to ionizing radiation, it makes sense to consume dry red wine as a precaution;it is a much more reliable antioxidant.
Does alcohol harm your hearing?
Australian scientists say regularly drinking small amounts of alcohol could help people protect their hearing in the future.From 1997 to 1999, they surveyed and surveyed two thousand residents in the Sydney area over the age of 55.
It turns out that people who regularly consume up to 56 grams of pure alcohol per day throughout their lives (and this is the amount contained in 180 ml of vodka, or 600 ml of wine, or 1440 ml of beer) are less likely to develop hearing problems in old age.Perhaps the reason lies in the vasodilating effect of alcohol, which improves blood flow to the outer cells of the ear.
However, scientists note that the most important thing in this matter is not to overdo it: patients who drink too much (consuming more than 56 grams of pure alcohol per day) have much more serious hearing problems than those who abstain completely.
Does alcohol save you from depression?
In 2013, a large study was completed in the city of Pamplona, Spain.After working extensively with 5,500 volunteers, scientists have concluded that moderate consumption - 5 to 15 grams of pure alcohol per day - reduces the risk of depression.Particularly good results are observed in people who drink alcohol in quantities of 2 to 7 glasses (150 ml) per week.
On the contrary, people who drink more than this amount have a higher risk of depression than normal.Depression should not be confused with bad mood.Major depressive disorder is an illness with long-term manifestations and - this is the main difference - unfounded depression, mental and motor retardation, as well as the inability and unwillingness to enjoy natural things such as food or sex (anhedonia).
Why do creative people drink?
Creative people sometimes find that after drinking alcohol, they come up with great new ideas.Why does this happen?
Once in the body, alcohol triggers apoptosis: the death of brain cells.As a result, some elements are cut off from the neural network, synaptic connections are broken and then partially restored.Some connections are formed in a new pattern.This is where insight can be gained, as any knowledge and understanding is a transmission of electrical signals in the brain along a certain path.
However, such insights are a happy accident that can happen during the first few years of drinking.It would be impossible to achieve this on purpose, because we do not know which specific neuron death would lead to the construction of a more successful “pathway to thought.”It is likely that nerve cell death will lead to impaired intellectual ability, and drinking alcohol regularly will lead to alcoholism.
What's healthier: drinking moderately or not drinking at all?
Research showing the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption is lacking at its core.That is the opinion of a group of scientists from the US, Canada and Australia.
Scientists analyzed 87 studies.According to their results, it turned out that people who drink alcohol in moderation are healthier than people who do not drink alcohol.It turns out that most of these studies cannot be trusted.
The main limitation of these studies is that the group of non-drinkers includes everyone: both people who cannot drink for health reasons and people who drank so much in the past that they later decided to stop so as not to become alcoholics.It turns out that a group of abstainers often includes people who were initially in poor health, weakened by drinking, or suffering from serious illnesses.And the group of moderate drinkers includes people who do not suffer from alcoholism and are in generally good health so can drink as much as they like.
That's why at the end of the study, moderate drinkers were healthier than abstainers. Scientists once again looked at previous studies and discovered people who drink alcohol rarely and irregularly.It turns out they lived longer than study participants who drank moderately.Their average life expectancy is longer than moderate drinkers, non-drinkers, and even longer than heavy drinkers.
Didn't live to see the study
When studying alcohol-related mortality, elderly patients were selected for the study: over 50 years old.Meanwhile, alcoholics often die earlier.But “dead people cannot be included in cohort studies,” as a medical science doctor from Boston Medical Center (USA) commented on this situation.
Heavy drinkers over 50 are people who happen to survive thanks to exceptionally good health, genetics, less dangerous consumption of alcoholic beverages, etc.This is why patients whose health is so good that even alcohol cannot kill it live longer than those who abstain and thus ruin all statistics.It's just that the most resilient people remained alive, the remaining alcoholics died earlier, but we do not take into account young people in mortality studies.
Naimi, together with Tanya Chikritz, known to us, and other colleagues published new data in 2019. They analyzed statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the period 2006–2010 in the United States.It turns out that more than 40% of alcohol-related deaths occur before the age of 50.
Drinking alcohol turns out to be least dangerous for people over 65: although 35% of alcohol-related deaths also occur in this age group, drunk people of this age are 80% less likely to die prematurely (before the expected age).So if you read an article about how drinkers live longer than non-drinkers, know that this pattern only holds true for older people.Young alcoholics are more likely to die young.
Can alcohol be beneficial?Research results
In 1999, a Dutch doctor conducted a study, which showed that moderate drinking is beneficial for the cardiovascular system.Myocardial infarction occurs least often in patients who drink alcohol in moderate doses: from 14 to 56 grams of pure alcohol per day, less than a glass of vodka.
Among people who strictly abstain from alcohol, the risk of myocardial infarction is even slightly higher, and among people who abuse alcohol, the risk is significantly higher.At the same time, drink choice does not play any role: wine, beer and spirits in moderation all reduce the risk of heart disease.A detailed article was published in the British Medical Journal about this and other research on the topic in 2017.
The researchers suggested a similar U-shaped dependence of encephalopathy incidence on alcohol intake.That is, brain diseases occur slightly more often in non-drinkers, rarely in moderate drinkers, and more often in heavy drinkers. In this case, it turns out that even a small amount of alcohol is only harmful to the brain.In general, it is still impossible to say with certainty whether moderate alcohol consumption is beneficial or whether alcohol is harmful to us in any amount.
Studies can yield different results, and this is normal: health and longevity are influenced by thousands of factors (diet, habits, sports, climate, genes, whatever).Isolating the influence of any one of them is a difficult task requiring a large number of subjects, refined methodology and a lot of patience.It is often difficult to distinguish results from statistical noise.
What can be said with certainty is that if there are benefits to drinking small amounts of alcohol, they are virtually invisible compared to everything else that affects the body.But alas, the harmful effects of alcohol were discovered immediately and did not cause any doubts among researchers.So, if the most important thing for you is to maintain health, then it is better not to drink alcohol than to try to improve your body with a small amount of alcohol.
Winemakers can bribe scientists
In the summer of 2018, a scandal broke out in the United States: The National Institutes of Health (N.I.H.) planned to spend $100 million on a large-scale study on the benefits of drinking small amounts of alcohol.However, officials intercepted correspondence between researchers and alcohol industry representatives.It turned out that most of the money was received from winemakers and the results of the research were predetermined.As a result, the study was canceled.
It must be said that such news is not surprising: quite often, research on the benefits of a particular product is sponsored by manufacturers.For example, some companies pay for much of the research on the benefits of cocoa, while others fund research on the benefits of yogurt.This was not a direct bribe and anyone could know who ordered the research.Another thing is that manufacturers can present the results in a favorable way.For example, publish only studies showing the benefits of cocoa and then say that not only cocoa but chocolate made from cocoa is healthy (which is not true).Therefore, we have another reason to criticize what is written about science in the press.
To put an end to this problem, scientists are trying to find out whether moderate drinkers live longer than non-drinkers.