Briefly: The harm of alcohol is determined by the dose from which damage to internal organs begins - the threshold of toxicity.To maintain health, the body needs time to recover after drinking: for this, it is necessary to 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 mobilizes 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.
"To drink too much is harmful, but to drink too little is boring."
What is drinking in moderation?
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 a body weight of 70 kg.
But it is not difficult to calculate that an incomplete glass of vodka contains 90 grams of pure alcohol.If we 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 couple of months the dose of alcohol will constantly increase.
The World Health Organization (WHO) believes that weekly consumption of strong alcoholic beverages (more than 25% vol. ethanol) in an amount greater than 150 ml is sufficient to develop alcohol dependence.
Note: If a person has had viral hepatitis (except hepatitis A) or has other chronic liver diseases, the safe dose for the liver during the period without exacerbation is reduced by two to three times.This 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 injury can only be evaluated individually.
Therefore, let's calculate what the drinking regimen should be so that the body has time to recover: the body of a healthy person cannot metabolize alcohol in an amount of 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. Thus, the “acceptable” dose per month will be (31/(1+8))*170 (g) in terms of pure alcohol, that is, 586 grams.For comparison: a standard bottle of vodka contains 316 grams of alcohol.
If you drink more than 170 grams in terms of alcohol, you should increase the intervals between drinking sessions;This is the only way to reduce the damage.
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 to 170 grams is at risk of fatty liver degeneration (and if there is impaired bile flow or you have had hepatitis, then cirrhosis).Anyone who drinks between 19 and 90 grams of pure alcohol will only damage the brain.
With the development of medicine, doctors' recommendations are gradually changing.A professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London talks about this interestingly in his book "To Drink or Not to Drink?"(2020).First, the damage of alcohol to the liver and cardiovascular system was evident.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, the drinkers did not particularly try to stay within these limits: after all, if 14 drinks do not cause damage to the liver, would the damage suddenly begin with a dose two or three times higher?The liver doesn't seem to be able to count.
In the 21st century, we have learned much more.Precise scientific research has confirmed that even very small doses of alcohol damage the brain and increase the risk of cancer.This is much more serious.Scientists have discovered that there is no absolutely safe amount of alcohol;We can only talk about doses “with a low level of risk to health.”In 2016, British doctors equalized this dose for men and women, because from small doses of alcohol the risk level in both sexes is the same and, if exceeded, the risk for men increases more quickly.Now everyone is recommended to drink no more than 14 drinks per week: this is 1 liter of 4% beer or 6 glasses of wine with an alcohol content of 13% (175 ml glasses).In addition, it is necessary to extend this amount of drinking throughout the week and not drink every day.
Is it better for your health to drink less frequently or in greater moderation?
For people of European descent with blonde hair, light skin and light eyes, if they do not want to stop drinking, it is better to drink less frequently (in short-term drinking mode).Less frequently means no more than once a month, which is due to the danger of rapid development of addiction when drinking regularly.For people with dark skin, hair and eyes, the drinking regimen is not of fundamental importance, as long as the doses in terms of ethanol are respected.
How different people tolerate alcohol
You should also keep in mind that Caucasians with darker skin and dark hair (Mongoloids are a separate topic) develop addiction during regular drinking sessions much more slowly 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 peoples of southern origin.The people of southern origin were formed by eating large quantities of fruits and berries that contained 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 many generations.
People with light skin and blonde hair carry the genes of northern peoples, who evolutionarily consumed animal and plant foods that predominantly produce lactic acid fermentation.For northerners, alcohol turns out to be a xenobiotic (foreign substance) and addiction is formed through 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 processes ethyl alcohol with great difficulty, although it adapts much better to other alcohols.If a person had inherited exactly this type of biochemistry from animals, then we would not be attracted to drinking: even the smallest doses of alcohol, which are found in overripe fruits, would cause serious intoxication of the body, not to mention strong drinks.
However, scientists managed to find out that our ancestors, after the evolutionary branch of orangutans diverged from them, but before we diverged from gorillas and chimpanzees, a special subtype of this enzyme appeared - alcohol dehydrogenase of the "fourth class" (ADH4).A small mutation in the genome of our ancestors changed amino acid 294 of the enzyme and made it possible for their bodies to process overripe fruits that fell to the ground and eliminated the need to climb trees in search of unripe fruits.
Thus, 10 million years ago, the ability to process alcohol helped us come down from the trees and begin to explore open spaces to later become homo erectus.And, as often happens in evolution, this ability later became useful for completely different purposes.
The benefits of wine: truth or myth
major benefits of alcoholic beverages comes, of course, dry red wine.Dry wine is a fermentation product of grapes (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 sugar that is fermented is that found naturally in grapes.Therefore, the ethanol content in dry wines usually does not exceed 13%.
The health benefits come mainly from dry red wine. powerful antioxidant.It helps reduce cholesterol levels and is also 10 to 20 times stronger than vitamin E as an antioxidant.Dry red wine contains about 3 times more resveratrol than grape juice from the same grape varieties.
For reference, antioxidants are substances that can neutralize the so-called active radicals, which are constantly formed in the body and are considered one of the factors of aging.However, it should be noted that powerful antioxidants are not an absolute benefit: they can protect against and cause cancer.Its excessive use carries risks in itself.
Dry red wine also contains numerous valuable microelements, e.g. rubidium, which has a calming, anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic effect.
It must be taken into account 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 provide any benefit.
A separate article had 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 thanks to moderate consumption of dry red wine have been proven false.
We also have to disappoint those who believed that drinking in small doses could prevent atherosclerosis.No, all modern scientific data indicates the opposite.A healthy dose of dry red wine is three glasses (approximately 450 ml) per week.
Is beer healthy?
Another alcoholic beverage that can be said to be capable of providing health benefits is beer.We are talking, first of all, about unpasteurized beer, the so-called "live", which was prevalent in the country 20 years ago and which is now a rarity.
Beer contains yeast products, including B vitamins, although in quantities that do not meet 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 the female sex hormones of the follicular phase.Hops in moderate doses have a calming effect.
The limit for a healthy dose of beer is approximately 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 blonde hair, including due to the content of tranquilizers.Beer addiction goes more unnoticed and is more difficult to treat compared to "pure" alcohol addiction, which developed, for example, as a result of vodka addiction.
Effect of hermesis (hormesis)
Regarding other alcoholic beverages, we can say that the benefit of moderate consumption is the effect of the so-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 figure it out 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 poison, makes efforts directed in the opposite direction to the external influence.If the external influence is not excessive, 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.
This effect does not appear with moderate, but rather small, doses of alcohol: 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 that damage cells.Antioxidants neutralize active radicals.Therefore, although the alcohol has not been oxidized, it has an anti-radiation effect to a certain extent.The oxidation products of alcohol themselves have a damaging effect similar to the action of active radicals.It will not be possible to treat radiation sickness that has already occurred (except symptomatically) with vodka.
That is, preventing radiation sickness with vodka can look like this: drink a glass and move through the radiation zone.And on the way out, immediately under an intravenous line.
Rather, prior to exposure to ionizing radiation, it makes sense to consume dry red wine prophylactically;It is a much more reliable antioxidant.
Does alcohol damage 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 surveyed two thousand Sydney area residents who were over 55 years old.
It turned 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, 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 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 completed in the city of Pamplona, Spain.After extensive work with 5,500 volunteers, scientists concluded 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.
Those who drank more than this, on the other hand, had a higher than normal risk of developing depression.Depression and bad mood should not be confused.Major depressive disorder is an illness that manifests itself with prolonged and (this is the main difference) unexplained depression of mood, mental and motor retardation, as well as an inability and unwillingness 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 surprising new ideas.Why is this happening?
Once in the body, alcohol triggers the process of apoptosis: the death of brain cells.As a result, some elements are disconnected from the neural network, synaptic connections are disrupted and then partially restored.Some connections form in a new pattern.This is where perception is possible, since any knowledge and understanding is the passage of electrical signals in the brain along a certain path.
However, these ideas are a happy accident that can occur in the early years of alcohol consumption.It will not be possible to achieve this on purpose, because we do not know which specific neuron dying will lead to the construction of a more successful "path for thought."The death of neurons is much more likely to lead to a decline in mental abilities, and regular alcohol consumption is much more likely to lead to alcoholism.
What is healthier: drinking in moderation or not drinking at all?
Research showing the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption is fundamentally flawed.This is stated by a group of scientists from the United States, Canada and Australia.
The 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 cannot be trusted.
The main drawback of these studies was that the group of non-drinkers included everyone: both those who cannot drink for health reasons and those who previously drank so much that they later decided to stop drinking so as not to become alcoholics.It turns out that a group of teetotalers usually consists of people with initially poor health, weakened by alcohol or serious illnesses.And the group of moderate drinkers includes people who do not suffer from alcohol addiction and who are generally healthy, so they can afford to drink as much as they want.
That is why at the end of the study it turns out that moderate drinkers are healthier than absolute abstainers. Scientists once again examined previous studies and found precisely people who drink rarely and irregularly.It turned out that they live longer than study participants who drink moderately.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 investigation.
When studying mortality from alcohol, elderly patients are selected for the study: over 50 years old.While alcoholics usually die at a younger age.But “the dead cannot be included in cohort studies,” as a doctor of medical sciences from the Boston Medical Center (USA) comments on the situation.
Heavy drinkers over 50 are people who accidentally survived due to particularly good health, genetics, consumption of less dangerous alcoholic beverages, etc.For this reason, patients with such good health, which not even alcohol could destroy, live even longer than abstainers and thus ruin all statistics.What happens is that the most resilient survived, the rest of the alcoholics died earlier, but we do not take young people into account in mortality studies.
Naimi, along with Tanya Chikritz, who we already know, 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 turned out that more than 40% of alcohol deaths occur before the age of 50.
Drinking turned out to be the least dangerous for people over 65: although 35% of alcohol deaths also occur at this age, drunks of this age are 80% less likely to die prematurely (before the expected 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 whose results suggested that drinking in moderation is beneficial for the cardiovascular system.Myocardial infarction occurred less frequently in patients who drank alcohol in moderate doses: 14 to 56 grams of pure alcohol per day, less than a glass of vodka.
Among complete 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 a role: wine, beer and spirits in moderation equally reduced the risk of heart disease.In 2017, an extensive article was published in the British Medical Journal about this and other studies on this topic.
The researchers suggested the same U-shaped dependence of the incidence of brain diseases on the amount of alcohol.That is, brain diseases occur a little more often in nondrinkers, rarely in moderate drinkers, and much more often in heavy drinkers. In this case it turns out that even small doses of alcohol only cause damage to the brain.In general, it is not yet possible to say with certainty whether drinking in moderation can be beneficial or whether alcohol is harmful to us in any quantity.
Studies can show different results, and this is normal: health and life expectancy are influenced by thousands and thousands of factors (diet, habits, sport, climate, genes, whatever).Isolating the influence of one of them is a difficult task that requires a huge number of subjects, a 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 small doses of alcohol have benefits, they are barely visible compared to everything else that affects the body.But the harm of alcohol, unfortunately, is detected immediately and does not raise doubts among researchers.Therefore, if the main thing for you is to maintain health, 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, officials intercepted correspondence between investigators 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 this news should not be surprising: very often, manufacturers sponsor research into the benefits of a particular product.For example, some companies pay for much of the research on the benefits of cocoa, while others sponsor research on the benefits of yogurt.This is not a direct bribe and anyone can see who ordered the investigation.Another thing is that manufacturers can present the results in a favorable way.For example, publishing only those studies that show the benefits of cocoa, and then saying that not only cocoa is healthy, but also chocolate made from it (which is not true).So we have another reason to be critical of what is written about science in the press.
To finally put an end to this problem, scientists are trying to find out whether moderate drinkers live longer than non-drinkers.