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

Four drinks a day?

[Kelson]

Is that four drinks every day? Or is that up to four drinks in a given 24-hour period, from time to time? - i.e. four drinks on Saturday night, then several more scattered throughout the week

Because I don't hink I'd consider four drinks every day to be "moderate" drinking.

Re:Legal age

[faloi]

I still find it interesting that at 18 you're allowed join the military and die but you're not allowed to drink alcohol.

To be fair, though, bars around military bases tended to not pay a lot of attention to specific details like age when shown a military ID (at least back when I was in). That doesn't make it any more legal, but at least we could still show up to morning PT drunk. Believe it or not, it's an even worse idea than it sounds.

Re:Define "drink"

[jc42]

There are plenty of studies which reach this conclusion - a bit of red whine is actually good for your health. IMO, what they miss is that it has to be real red wine, ...

Actually, studies like this go back at least 30 years, and their results are a bit more complex.

The first big one I remember reading about was in the mid 70's, in the UK. It was a massive "data dredging" study of medical records, looking for things correlated (negatively or positively) with long life.

They reported that the strongest correlation was with "moderate alcohol consumption", which was about the same as in this study - 3 or 4 drinks per day, where "drink" was somewhat fuzzily defined as whatever the records listed as a "glass". They reported that drunkards didn't do so well, but teetotalers didn't do a lot better, and the ones who lived longest were those who regularly consumed moderate amounts of alcohol.

They did have a few more details. Those who drank only distilled booze didn't benefit as much as those who drank beer or wine (but they did benefit). They had weak data showing that red wines and dark beers were somewhat better for health than the lighter-colored varieties. They said that drinking with meals was better for you than just drinking, and they didn't recommend having all four of your drinks all at once.

Since then, quite a lot of research has given us a lot more information. Recently, studies have uncovered some of the reasons for the benefits of red wines, including the fact that not all red wines show the benefits. But again, further research is needed.

My wife works with medical data a lot, and is constantly finding more studies of the effects of alcohol. She rather likes telling people about the latest benefits that have been discovered. And she comments that we just don't drink enough around our house. A few years back, she worked with a researcher who liked to tell people that his studies had been unable to find an upper bound to the amount of alcohol that was beneficial. He would add that he was just studying the effect of ethanol on the circulatory system, which is apparently not at all damaged by heavy drinking. He would also say that he couldn't comment on the effect on other parts of the body such as the liver; that was other people's research.

Anyway, it's a complex subject, biologically, and the research isn't nearly done. But there have been a lot of studies, and we can fairly firmly recommend a glass or two of beer or wine with every meal. Well, maybe not with breakfast, as you might just decide to go back to sleep, so have that one later in the evening instead. Dark wines and beers are somewhat better than light, but if you don't like them, drink something you do like and don't worry about it.