In short: The harms of alcohol are determined by the dose beyond which damage to internal organs begins: the toxicity threshold.To stay healthy, the body needs to have time to recover after drinking: to do this, you should drink no more than 170 grams of pure alcohol, no more than once every 8 days.The benefit of moderate doses of alcohol may be that the body is mobilized in response to small doses of harmful substances.Dry red wine and unpasteurized beer contain useful impurities: vitamins, antioxidants, microelements that are beneficial in small doses and harmful in large doses.
“Drinking a lot is harmful, but drinking a little is boring.»
What is moderate alcohol consumption?
In terms of pure ethanol toxicity threshold (i.e. the dose at which organ damage begins) 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 a white person with a healthy liver, kidneys and brain and weighing 70 kg.
But it is not difficult to calculate that an incomplete glass of vodka contains 90 grams of pure alcohol.If you imagine a person who drinks a glass of vodka every day, then if he has a hereditary predisposition, he will develop alcohol dependence in six to eight months, and in the absence of a hereditary predisposition, in three years.Not to mention the fact that after a few months the dose of alcohol will constantly increase.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that weekly consumption of strong alcoholic beverages (more than 25% ethanol by volume) in quantities greater than 150 ml is sufficient to create alcohol dependence.
Note: if a person has suffered from viral hepatitis (except hepatitis A) or other chronic liver diseases, the safe dose for the liver during the period without exacerbation is reduced by two to three times.It depends on the volume of the affected part of the organ and the nature of the process.The nature of the process and the extent of the lesion can only be assessed individually.
Therefore, let's calculate what the drinking regime 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 alcohol consumption to restore the liver should be alternated with eight days of abstinence. So, the “acceptable” dose per month will be (31/(1+8))*170 (g) in terms of pure alcohol, or 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 need to increase the intervals between drinking sessions - this is the only way to reduce harm.
To summarize, let's try to imagine three people who drink once every 8 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 90-170 grams risks developing fatty liver (and if there is a violation of bile flow or hepatitis, then cirrhosis).Anyone who drinks between 19 and 90 grams of pure alcohol will only harm the brain.
With the development of medicine, doctors' recommendations gradually evolve.A professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London talks about this interestingly in his book “To Drink or Not to Drink?(2020).First of all, the harm of alcohol on the liver and cardiovascular system was obvious.More recently, British doctors have allowed men to drink up to 21 drinks (standard units of alcohol) and women up to 14 drinks per week.Of course, the drinkers did not particularly try to stay within these limits: after all, if 14 glasses do not harm the liver, would the damage suddenly begin from a dose two or three times higher?The liver doesn't seem to know how to count.
In the 21st century, we have learned much more.Exact scientific research has confirmed that even very small doses of alcohol damage the brain and increase the risk of cancer.It's much more serious.Scientists have discovered that there is no absolutely safe amount of alcohol;we can only speak of doses “presenting a low level of health risk”.In 2016, British doctors equalized this dose for men and women, because at small doses of alcohol the level of risk in both sexes is the same, and if it is exceeded, the risk for men increases faster.It is now recommended that everyone drink no more than 14 glasses per week: either 1 liter of beer at 4% or 6 glasses of wine at 13% (175 ml glasses).In addition, you must spread this amount of drink over the entire week and not drink every day.
Is it better for your health to drink less often or to drink more moderately?
For people of European origin who are blond, fair-skinned and light-eyed, if you don't want to stop drinking, it is better to drink less often (in short-term drinking mode).Less often means no more than once a month, which is due to the risk of rapid development of addiction with regular alcohol consumption.For people with dark skin, dark hair and dark eyes, the drinking regime is not of fundamental importance, provided that the doses in terms of ethanol are respected.
How different peoples tolerate alcohol
You should also keep in mind that Caucasians with darker skin and dark hair (Mongoloids are a separate issue) develop addiction much more slowly on regular drinking sessions than people with light skin and blonde hair.
This is due to the fact that dark-skinned and dark-skinned people carry the genes of people of southern origin.Peoples of southern origin were formed in conditions of consumption of large quantities of fruits and berries containing a lot of glucose, grape acid, fiber and pectin.In the large intestine, these components undergo alcoholic fermentation, so the body has adapted to microdoses of ethanol over several generations.
People with light skin and blond hair carry the genes of northern peoples, who during their evolution consumed foods of animal origin and vegetables producing mainly lactic fermentation.For northerners, alcohol turns out to be a xenobiotic (foreign substance) and addiction to it is formed by other mechanisms, very similar to addiction to other weak poisons.
Where did 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 adapts much better to other alcohols.If a person had inherited exactly this type of animal biochemistry, then we would not be attracted to drinking: even the smallest doses of alcohol, contained in overripe fruits, would cause serious intoxication in the body, not to mention strong drinks.
However, scientists managed to find out that our ancestors, after the evolutionary branch of orangutans separated from them, but before separating us from 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 294th amino acid of the enzyme and allowed their bodies to process overripe fruit that had fallen to the ground, and eliminated the need to climb trees to find unripe fruit.
So, 10 million years ago, the ability to transform alcohol allowed us to come down from the trees and start exploring open spaces and then become homo erectus.And, as often happens during evolution, this skill was later useful for completely different purposes.
The benefits of wine – truth or myth
Main benefits of alcoholic beverages comes, of course, dry red wine.Dry wine is a product of grape fermentation (fruit and berry wines are not wines in the strict sense), in which all the sugar contained in the grapes is fermented by microorganisms into alcohol.The only fermented sugar is that found naturally in grapes.Therefore, the ethanol content of dry wines generally does not exceed 13%.
The health benefits mainly come from dry red wine. powerful antioxidant.It helps lower cholesterol levels and is also 10 to 20 times more powerful than vitamin E as an antioxidant.Dry red wine contains approximately 3 times more resveratrol than grape juice from the same grape varieties.
For reference, antioxidants are substances capable of neutralizing the so-called active radicals, which are constantly formed in the body and are considered one of the factors of aging.It should be noted, however, that powerful antioxidants are not an absolute benefit: they can both protect against cancer and cause cancer.Their excessive use carries risks in itself.
Dry red wine also contains a number of valuable microelements, for example, rubidium, which has a calming, anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic effect.
It should be borne in mind that an excess of rubidium is more harmful to the body than its deficiency, so daily consumption of dry red in large quantities will not bring any benefit.
A separate article was to be devoted to the question of whether wine is good for the heart.Unfortunately, claims that the so-called Mediterranean diet is beneficial for the heart due to moderate amounts of dry red wine have proven to be false.
We must also disappoint those who believed that drinking in small doses could prevent atherosclerosis.No, all modern scientific data indicates the opposite.A good dose of dry red wine is three glasses (about 450 ml) per week.
Is beer healthy?
Another alcoholic drink that can be said to be able to provide health benefits can be considered beer.First of all, we are talking about unpasteurized beer, called “live”, which was prevalent in the country 20 years ago, and which is rare today.
Beer contains yeast products including B vitamins, but in quantities that do not satisfy daily needs;zinc, which is a valuable microelement necessary for the synthesis of insulin.The condition of the skin and the reproductive system depends on the zinc content.Hop components - natural analogues of benzodiazepine tranquilizers - have a calming effect, especially in combination with phytoestrogens, plant analogues of female sex hormones of the follicular phase.Hops in moderate doses have a calming effect.
The limit for a healthy dose of beer is around 600 ml per day.However, daily consumption of beer for several years leads to the formation of addiction in people with light skin, light eyes and blond hair, especially due to the content of tranquilizers.Beer addiction develops more unnoticed and is more difficult to treat than "pure" alcohol addiction, which developed, for example, as a result of vodka addiction.
Effect of hermesis (hormesis)
Concerning other alcoholic drinks, we can say that the benefit of their moderate consumption is the effect of what is called hermesis (hormesis) - a mobilizing reaction of the body to a harmful effect in a small dose.
What kind of buzzword is this? Let's see this now
This effect is as follows: our body strives to remain the same, despite external influences (homeostasis), and therefore, in response to the introduction of the poison, it makes efforts directed in the direction opposite to the external influence.If the external influence is not excessive, then a mobilizing reaction is obtained (the usual stages of increasing influence are activation, training, stress).That is, you can take any harmful effect of alcohol and change the sign of the effect to the opposite direction.
This effect does not appear with moderate doses of alcohol, but rather low ones: no more than 50 ml of vodka (one tablespoon of alcohol), no more than twice a week.
By the way, this effect exists for any harmful effect and is usually studied using radiation.
Does alcohol protect against radiation?
Is it true that alcohol protects against radiation?For example, after a radioactive explosion, there were stories about how radiation sickness was treated with vodka.Is this true?
Alcohol is an antioxidant.When the body is irradiated, active radicals are formed and damage cells.Antioxidants neutralize active radicals.Therefore, even if the alcohol has not oxidized, it has an anti-radiation effect to a certain extent.The oxidation products of alcohol themselves have a harmful effect similar to the action of active radicals.It will not be possible to treat radiation sickness that has already occurred with vodka (except symptomatically).
That is, prevention of radiation sickness with vodka may look like this: drink a drink and walk through the radiation zone.And upon discharge - immediately under IV.
Before any exposure to ionizing radiation, it makes sense to consume dry red wine as a prophylactic measure;it is a much more reliable antioxidant.
Does alcohol harm your hearing?
Australian scientists say drinking small amounts of alcohol regularly can help people preserve their hearing in the future.From 1997 to 1999, they surveyed and interviewed two thousand Sydney-area residents aged over 55.
It turned out that people who regularly consumed 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 1,440 ml of beer) are less likely to develop hearing problems in old age.The reason may lie in the vasodilator effect of alcohol, which improves blood flow to the outer cells of the ear.
However, scientists note that the main thing in this matter is not to overdo it: patients who drink excessively (consuming more than 56 grams of pure alcohol per day) have much more serious hearing problems than absolute abstainers.
Does alcohol save you from depression?
In 2013, a large study was carried out in the city of Pamplona, Spain.After extensive work with 5,500 volunteers, scientists came to the conclusion that moderate consumption – 5 to 15 grams of pure alcohol per day – reduces the risk of depression.Particularly good results were seen in those who drank wine in quantities of 2 to 7 glasses (150 ml) per week.
On the contrary, those who drank more than that were at higher than normal risk of developing depression.Depression should not be confused with bad mood.Major depressive disorder is an illness that manifests itself as long-term and - this is the main difference - causeless depression of mood, mental and motor retardation, as well as the inability and refusal to enjoy natural things such as food or sex (anhedonia).
Why do creative people drink?
Creative people sometimes notice that after drinking, they come up with amazing new ideas.Why is this happening?
Once in the body, alcohol triggers the process of apoptosis: the death of brain cells.As a result, certain elements are cut off from the neuronal network, synaptic connections are broken and then partially restored.Some connections form in a new pattern.This is where insight is possible, since all knowledge and understanding is the passage of electrical signals in the brain along a certain path.
However, such findings are a happy accident that can occur during the early years of drinking.It will not be possible to achieve this in a deliberate way, because we do not know which specific neuron death will lead to the construction of a more effective “pathway of thought”.It is much more likely that neuron death will lead to a decline in mental abilities and that regular alcohol consumption will lead to alcoholism.
Which is healthier: drinking in moderation or not drinking at all?
Research showing the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption is fundamentally flawed.This is what a group of scientists from the United States, Canada and Australia declare.
Scientists analyzed 87 studies.According to their results, it turned out that moderate drinkers were healthier than non-drinkers.It turned out that most of these studies are unreliable.
The main disadvantage of these studies was that the group of non-drinkers included everyone: both those who could not drink for health reasons and those who previously drank so much that they later decided to quit so as not to become alcoholics.It turns out that a group of abstainers is generally made up of people initially in poor health, weakened by alcohol or serious illnesses.And the group of moderate drinkers includes people who do not suffer from alcohol dependence and are generally healthy, so they can afford to drink as much as they want.
This is why it turns out at the end of the study that moderate drinkers are healthier than absolute abstainers. Scientists once again looked at previous studies and found that these people drank rarely and irregularly.It turned out that they live longer than participants in the moderate alcohol consumption study.Their life expectancy was, on average, longer than that of moderate drinkers, than that of non-drinkers, and even longer than that of heavy drinkers.
I didn't live to see the research
When studying mortality due to alcohol, elderly patients are selected for the study: over 50 years old.While alcoholics often die younger.But “dead people cannot be included in cohort studies,” comments a doctor of medical sciences from the Boston Medical Center (United States).
Heavy drinkers over 50 are people who have survived accidentally thanks to particularly good health, genetics, consumption of less dangerous alcoholic beverages, etc.That is why such healthy patients, whom even alcohol could not destroy, live even longer than abstainers and thus spoil all the statistics.It's just that the most resistant remained alive, the rest of the alcoholics died earlier, but young people are not taken into account in mortality studies.
Naimi, along with Tanya Chikritz, whom we already know, and other colleagues published new data in 2019. They analyzed statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 2006-2010 in the United States.It turned out that more than 40% of deaths due to alcohol occur before the age of 50.
Alcohol consumption was found to be the least dangerous for people over 65: although 35% of alcohol-related deaths also occur at this age, drunks 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 trend only applies to older people.Young alcoholics are more likely to die young.
Can alcohol be beneficial?Search results
In 1999, a Dutch doctor conducted a study whose results suggested that moderate alcohol consumption is beneficial for the cardiovascular system.Myocardial infarction occurred least often in patients who drank alcohol in moderate doses: from 14 to 56 grams of pure alcohol per day, which is less than a glass of vodka.
Among absolute abstainers, the risk of myocardial infarction was even slightly higher, and among alcoholics it was significantly higher.At the same time, the choice of drink did not play any role: wine, beer and spirits in moderation also reduced the risk of heart disease.A detailed article was published in the British Medical Journal on this and other studies on this topic in 2017.
Researchers suggested the same U-shaped dependence of the incidence of brain diseases on the amount of alcohol.In other words, brain diseases occur somewhat more often in non-drinkers, rarely in moderate drinkers, and much more often in heavy drinkers. In this case, it turns out that even small doses of alcohol only harm the brain.In general, it is not yet possible to say with certainty whether moderate alcohol consumption can be beneficial or whether alcohol is harmful to us, regardless of the amount.
Studies can give different results, and that's normal: health and life expectancy are influenced by thousands and thousands of factors (diet, habits, sports, climate, genes, etc.).Isolating the influence of any one of them is a difficult task that requires a large number of subjects, a refined methodology and a lot of patience.It is often difficult to separate results from statistical noise.
What can be said with certainty is that while small doses of alcohol have benefits, they are barely visible against the backdrop of everything else that affects the body.But the harm of alcohol, unfortunately, is detected immediately and does not cause any doubt among researchers.So, if the main thing for you is to stay healthy, then it is wiser not to drink at all than to try to improve your body with small doses of alcohol.
Alcohol producers can bribe scientists
In the summer of 2018, a scandal broke out in the United States: the National Institute of Health (N.I.H.) was going to spend $100 million on a large-scale study on the benefits of small doses of alcohol.However, authorities intercepted correspondence between researchers and representatives of the alcohol industry.It turned out that most of the money came from alcohol producers and the results of the study were predetermined.As a result, the study was canceled.
It must be said that such news should not come as a surprise: very often, research into the benefits of a particular product is sponsored by the manufacturers.For example, some companies fund much of the research into the benefits of cocoa, while others fund research into the benefits of yogurt.This is not direct corruption and everyone can know who ordered the research.Another thing is that manufacturers can present the results in a favorable light.For example, only publish studies that show the benefits of cocoa, and then say that not only is cocoa healthy, but so is the chocolate made from it (which is not true).We therefore have another reason to criticize what is written in the press about science.
To finally put an end to this problem, scientists are trying to find out whether moderate drinkers live longer than non-drinkers.