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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.""
FTA: However, "things radically change" when consumption goes beyond these levels
For starters, you wake up in bed with a stranger not knowing how either got there...
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
I still find it interesting that at 18 you're allowed join the military and die but you're not allowed to drink alcohol.
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.
I wondered if they remembered to take into account people who don't drink because of pre-existing health conditions that result in shorter life spans. That's a variable they tend to forget in these studies...
It's sad when choosing an installation directory on your own qualifies you as an "advanced user."
The things I do for my health ... *hic*
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
Clearly, from this study, if you're having 4 drinks a week, you DO have a drinking problem. Specifically, your problem is you aren't drinking enough.
1 pan-galactic gargle blaster
But unfortunately the correlation may not imply causation. i.e. people who live longer drink more, but not vice-versa.
Lotsa possible ways to spoil things.
In the Philippines, bartenders [do not] check the age of American soldiers.
Fair enough. In the Philippines, American soldiers do not check the age of Philippino girls...
Homer: "To alcohol, the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems"
Monstar L
Correlation does not imply causation. All we can say is that "people who drink a bit of alcohol tend to live longer," not that alcohol prolongs their lives. It could be that these individuals take the time to socialize and de-stress, which causes them to live longer. Or perhaps there are financial factors at play: someone who can afford to drink three or four bottles of wine a week is not likely to be living in abject poverty. Of course, it could also be that anti-oxidant properties of the beverages have a positive effect as well.
They defined a drink as 10 grams of ethanol, which would make the appropriate amount for americans something like 1 tumbler of scotch, I believe (assuming 120 proof). 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.
Once lived in a dorm that was co-ed by door, and was awakened one night by a drunken female staggering in my door and flopping down next to me in bed...She'd gotten off on the wrong floor from the elevator, and had mistaken my room for her room. I don't know who the hell she thought I was...Anyway...Being a chivalrous geek, I just rolled over and went back to sleep...I assumed that she would understand the nature of her mistake upon awakening, and maybe, I don't know, invite me to breakfast or something.
Three hours later I was standing in the hall with no shirt, after being thrown out of my own room by a still-drunk girl who was convinced that I'd sneaked into her room in the night! One of my floormates called campus security (probably for their own amusement), and the whole thing ended up being written up (in garbled form) as a security report in the campus paper.
Not only did I not get breakfast, poor girl was so humiliated by the whole incident that she avoided me until I transferred 18 months later.
I think the moral is either: Don't drink the punch, or Let sleeping geeks lie.
Wow buddy, you sound streesed. How about a drink?
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
You're probably not far off. I know some wines have health benefits, but I'm guessing the biggest benefit from moderate drinking is that the drinker is more relaxed: stress is certainly no friend to health.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Finding out who paid for these studies and the publicizing of their results, is another story... With alcohol and wine lobbies strongly rooted in the french political life, and recently getting into academic funding, you should always follow the money before you make your mind about these studies...
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
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.
I'm no expert on the subject, but alcohol is the waste product of micro organisms as they ferment (wheat, barley, fruit, etc). There wouldn't be anything in your body to ferment and hence, no reaction.
btw, when I start to see 2 slashdot homepages on my screen at the same time, thats when my body tells me I have the perfect amount of alcohol.
I got nothin'
So Americans should probably interpret the limit as *3* drinks per day for men.
Actually, from the somewhat better article on this study that I read, they found a difference between European and American drinking that placed 3, 10g drinks as the high end cutoff for Americans and 6 as the cutoff for Europeans. They theorized this was due to the differences in the way Americans and Europeans drink, specifically if you were drinking small amounts with meals all day, or drinking all of it at once without food.
So you should probably change that to "2" drinks per day, for men, unless you're drinking them more dispersed over the course of the day and with food.
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.
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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.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I always thought this was bizarre. A 12 oz beer just does not look right in a pint glass. It's like hot dogs coming 6 to a pack and buns 8 to a pack. Madness.
>Please don't kill Douglas Adams for me, and others.
Too late.
*ducks*
when I start to see 2 slashdot homepages
Either that or you finally got xinerama working.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
Right. So it's technically correct to take a sip of 12 year old single malt and say, 'That's good shit.'
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
If you want obscure, my calculations say that the limit comes out to about one third of a firkin of ale per fortnight.
Cheers!
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
Damn! For Aussies, this means we can only have a sip!
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
Here in the US we have this thing called the drug war. You may have heard of it. One of the central tenants pushed out by the government propaganda machine (called the ONDCP) is that all use is abuse. There's no such thing as "harmless use" of any drug, not in the brave new USA at least.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
You first, I'm having a beer.
After all, I am strangely colored.