Drinking Alcohol May Extend Your Life

Adolytsi writes "MSNBC has an interesting article on an Italian study on alcoholism. While the obvious notion of overconsumption of alcohol being detrimental to one's health is supported, apparently drinking it in moderation can actually extend your lifespan. A study on over 1 million drinkers and 94,000 deaths yielded the results: "According to the data, drinking a moderate amount of alcohol — up to four drinks per day in men and two drinks per day in women — reduces the risk of death from any cause by roughly 18 percent, the team reports in the Archives of Internal Medicine. However, "things radically change" when consumption goes beyond these levels, study leader Dr. Augusto Di Castelnuovo, from Catholic University of Campobasso, said in a statement. Men who have more than four drinks per day and women who have more than two drinks per day not only lose the protection that alcohol affords, but they increase their risk of death, the data indicates.""

Comments

Re:Legal age

[Lord Kano]

Federal highway funds are linked to the drinking age. If a state sets their drinking age below 21, they lose millions upon millions of dollars in federal highway funds.

States basically have the choice of discriminating against 18-20 year old adults and going bankrupt.

LK

Re:Define "drink"

[Waffle Iron]

I didn't see them mention the amount of ethanol per drink in the article, but 10g does match the Italian definition of a standard drink, which is also about the amount in a 1-oz shot of 80-proof liquor. Most people in the USA, however, probably think of a single drink as more like the US standard, which is 14g. This corresponds to a 12-oz non-light beer or 5 oz of most wines. So Americans should probably interpret the limit as *3* drinks per day for men.

Re:Define "drink"

[AeroIllini]

If someone cares to do a more scientific conversion, rather than the half-assed one I just put together, we're looking for what content of scotch contains 30 grams of ethanol.

Ok.

A standard "drink", as defined in the US, is 0.6 oz of ethenol. We will assume 43% alcohol by volume (the content of my favorite Scotch, Glenmorangie 18 year).

At 43% ABV, a "standard drink" of Glenmorangie would be 0.6/0.43 = 1.40 oz, or slightly less than a shot (1.5 oz). 0.6 oz of ethanol weighs about 14g, assuming a specific gravity of 0.789 for ethanol. Calculations below:

(0.6 oz) * (29.57 ml/oz) * (0.789 g/cm^3) * (1 ml/cm^3) = 14.0 grams

So with a drink allowance of 4 drinks at 10g of ethanol each would allow you to have *almost* three Scotches, by American drink size standards. In the UK, where a standard drink is only 10 ml of ethanol, you could have five drinks. Whether this amount is more or less than what you actually pour for yourself is left as an exercise for the reader.