In short: The harm from alcohol is determined by the dose above which the damage to the internal organs begins - the toxicity threshold.To maintain health, the body must have time to recover after drinking: to do this, you must drink no more than 170 grams of pure alcohol no more often 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, trace elements, which are useful in small doses and harmful in large doses.
"Drinking a lot is harmful, but drinking a little is boring."
What is moderate drinking?
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 Caucasian person with a healthy liver, kidneys and brain and a body weight of 70 kg.
But it is not difficult to calculate that 90 grams of pure alcohol are contained in an incomplete glass of vodka.If you imagine a person who drinks a glass of vodka every day, 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) considers that the weekly consumption of strong (more than 25 vol.% ethanol) alcoholic beverages in an amount of more than 150 ml is sufficient to form alcohol dependence.
Note: if a person has suffered from viral hepatitis (except for hepatitis A) or has other chronic liver diseases, then 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 for this, 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 drinking alcohol to restore the liver should be alternated with eight days of abstinence. So the "allowable" 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 of alcohol, then you need to increase the intervals between drinking - this is the only way to reduce the harm.
To summarize everything, let's try to imagine three people who drink once every 8 days.Anyone who exceeds the threshold of 170 grams of alcohol will have damage to the liver and other organs: kidneys, stomach, pancreas, lungs, retina.Anyone who drinks from 90 to 170 grams is at risk of fatty degeneration of the liver (and if there is a violation of bile flow or hepatitis, then cirrhosis).Anyone who drinks from 19 to 90 grams of pure alcohol will only harm the brain.
With the development of medicine, the recommendations of doctors gradually change.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.Most 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, drinkers are not particularly trying to stay within these limits: after all, if 14 drinks do not cause damage to the liver, then the damage will suddenly start from a dose two or three times larger?The liver can't seem to count.
In the 21st century, we have learned much more.Precise scientific studies confirm that even very small doses of alcohol damage the brain and increase the risk of cancer.This is much more serious.Scientists have determined that there is no absolutely safe amount of alcohol;we can only talk about doses "with a low level of health risk".In 2016, British doctors equalized this dose for men and women, because from small doses of alcohol, the level of risk in both sexes is the same, and if it is exceeded, the risk in men increases faster.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 a strength of 13% (175 ml glasses).Also, you should spread this amount of drinking throughout the week and not drink every day.
Is it better for your health to drink less or more moderately?
For light-haired, light-skinned and light-eyed people of European descent, if you do not want to give up drinking, it is better to drink less often (in a short-term drinking regime).Less often means no more than once a month, which is due to the danger of rapid development of addiction with regular drinking.For people with dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes, the drinking regime is not of primary importance, provided that the doses in terms of ethanol are observed.
How different peoples tolerate alcohol
You should also keep in mind that darker-skinned and dark-haired Caucasians (Mongoloids are a separate matter) develop addiction during regular drinking sessions much more slowly than fair-skinned and fair-haired people.
This is due to the fact that swarthy and swarthy people carry the genes of peoples of southern origin.The peoples of southern origin were formed in conditions of eating large amounts 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 many generations.
Fair-skinned and fair-haired people carry the genes of northern peoples who have evolved to consume animal foods and vegetables that produce mostly lactic acid 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 do humans get the ability to metabolize alcohol?
All mammals have the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase, which breaks down alcohol, but it processes ethyl alcohol very hard, although it does much better with other alcohols.If a person had inherited exactly this kind of biochemistry from animals, then we would not be attracted to drinking: even the smallest doses of alcohol, which are contained in overripe fruits, would cause severe intoxication of the body, not to mention strong drinks.
However, scientists were able to discover that our ancestors, after the evolutionary branch of orangutans separated from them, but before we parted with 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 the 294th amino acid 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 for unripe fruits.
So 10 million years ago, the ability to process alcohol helped us get down from the trees and start exploring open spaces to eventually become homo erectus.And as often happens in evolution, this skill was later useful for completely different purposes.
The benefits of wine - truth or myth
Basic the benefits of alcoholic beverages coming of course of dry red wine.Dry wine is a fermentation product of grapes (fruit and strawberry wines are not wines in the strict sense of the word), where all the sugar contained in the grapes is fermented by microorganisms into alcohol.The only sugar that has been fermented is that which occurs naturally in grapes.Therefore, the ethanol content in dry wines, as a rule, does not exceed 13%.
The health benefits come mostly from dry red wine. powerful antioxidant.It helps lower cholesterol levels and is also 10-20 times stronger 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 that can neutralize the so-called active radicals that 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 both protect against cancer and cause cancer.Their excessive use carries risks in itself.
Dry red wine also contains a number of valuable trace elements, e.g. rubidium, which has a soothing, 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 the daily consumption of dry red in large quantities will not bring any benefit.
A separate article should have been devoted to the question of whether wine is good for the heart.Unfortunately, claims that the so-called Mediterranean diet is good for the heart due to moderate amounts of dry red wine have been proven false.
We must also disappoint those who believed that drinking in small doses could prevent atherosclerosis.No, all modern scientific evidence points to 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 provide health benefits can be considered beer.It is primarily about unpasteurized, so-called "live" beer, which prevailed in the country 20 years ago, and is now a rarity.
Beer contains yeast products, incl B vitaminsalthough in quantities that do not satisfy the daily need;zinc, which is a valuable trace element necessary for the synthesis of insulin.The condition of the skin and the reproductive system depends on the zinc content.Hop components - natural analogs of benzodiazepine tranquilizers - have a calming effect, especially in combination with phytoestrogens, plant analogs of female sex hormones from 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, the daily consumption of beer for several years leads to the formation of addiction in people with light skin, light eyes and light hair, including due to the content of tranquilizers.Addiction to beer develops more unnoticed and is more difficult to treat than "pure" alcohol dependence, which developed, for example, as a result of addiction to vodka.
Hermesis effect (hormesis)
Regarding the other alcoholic beverages, we can say that the benefit of their moderate consumption is the effect of the so-called hermesis (hormesis) - mobilizing reaction of the body to a harmful effect in a small dose.
What kind of buzzword is that? Let's find 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 direction opposite to the external influence.If the external influence is not excessive, then a mobilizing response occurs (the usual stages of increasing influence are activation, learning, 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 occur with moderate, but rather small doses of alcohol: no more than 50 ml of vodka (a 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, as long as the alcohol has not oxidized, it has some degree of anti-radiation effect.The products of alcohol oxidation themselves have a damaging effect similar to the action of active radicals.It will not be possible to treat an already occurring radiation sickness with vodka (except symptomatically).
That is, vodka for the prevention of radiation sickness may look like this: drink a glass and proceed through the radiation zone.And at the exit - immediately under intravenous.
Rather, before exposure to ionizing radiation, it makes sense to prophylactically consume dry red wine;it is a much more reliable antioxidant.
Does alcohol harm your hearing?
Australian scientists claim that regularly drinking small amounts of alcohol can help people preserve their hearing in the future.From 1997 to 1999, they surveyed and surveyed two thousand residents in the Sydney area who were over the age of 55.
It turned out that people who regularly consumed up to 56 grams of pure alcohol per day throughout their lives (which is the amount contained in 180 ml of vodka, or 600 ml of wine, or 1440 ml of beer) were 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 (consume 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 are observed in those who drink wine in quantities of 2 to 7 glasses (150 ml) per week.
Those who drank more than that, on the contrary, had a higher than normal risk of developing depression.Depression and low mood should not be confused.Major depressive disorder is an illness that manifests itself with long-lasting and - this is the main difference - unprovoked depression of mood, mental and motor retardation, as well as the 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 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, some elements are disconnected from the neural network, synaptic connections are broken and then partially restored.Some relationships are formed in a new pattern.This is where insight is possible, because all knowledge and understanding is the passage of electrical signals in the brain along a certain path.
Such insights, however, are a happy accident that can happen during the first few years of drinking.It will not be possible to achieve this purposefully, because we do not know which particular neuron's death will lead to the construction of a more successful "thought route".It is much more likely that the death of neurons will lead to a decline in mental abilities, and that regular drinking will lead to alcoholism.
What is healthier: drinking in moderation or not drinking at all?
Research showing the benefits of moderate drinking is flawed at its core.This is claimed by a group of scientists from the USA, Canada and Australia.
The scientists analyzed 87 studies.According to their results, it turns out that moderate drinkers are healthier than non-drinkers.It turned out that most of these studies could not be trusted.
The main drawback of these studies is that the group of non-drinkers includes everyone: both those who cannot drink for health reasons and those who drank so much before that they later decided to stop in order not to become alcoholics.It turns out that the abstainer group is usually made up of people with initial poor health, undermined by drinking or serious illness.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.
That is why at the end of the study it turns out that moderate drinkers are healthier than absolute abstainers. The scientists revisited previous studies and found just such people who drink infrequently and irregularly.They turned out to live longer than the moderate drinkers in the study.Their life expectancy is, on average, longer than that of moderate drinkers, than that of non-drinkers, and even longer than that of heavy drinkers.
I did not live to see the study
When examining mortality from alcohol, elderly patients are selected for the study: over 50 years.While alcoholics often die at an earlier age.But "dead people cannot be included in cohort studies," as a doctor of medical sciences from the Boston Medical Center (USA) commented on the situation.
Heavy drinkers over 50 are people who happened to survive because of particularly good health, genetics, consumption of less dangerous alcoholic beverages, etc.That is why patients with such good health, which even alcohol cannot destroy, live even longer than abstainers and thus spoil all the statistics.It's just that the hardiest stayed alive, the rest of the alcoholics died earlier, but we don't take young people into account in mortality studies.
Naimi, along with the already familiar Tanya Chikritz 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 alcohol-related deaths occur before the age of 50.
Drinking was found to be least dangerous for people over the age of 65: although 35% of alcohol-related deaths also occur at this age, drinkers at this age are 80% less likely to die prematurely (before the predicted life expectancy).So if you read an article about how drinkers live longer than non-drinkers, know that this pattern only applies to older people.Young alcoholics are more likely to die young.
Can alcohol be helpful?Research results
In 1999, a Dutch doctor conducted a study, the results of which showed that moderate drinking is beneficial for the cardiovascular system.Myocardial infarction occurs least often in patients who drink alcohol in moderate doses: from 14 to 56 grams of pure alcohol per day, which is less than a glass of vodka.
In absolute abstainers, the risk of myocardial infarction is even slightly higher, and in alcohol abusers it is significantly higher.At the same time, the choice of drink does not play a role: wine, beer and spirits in moderation reduce the risk of heart disease equally.An extensive article was published in the British Medical Journal on this and other research on this topic in 2017.
The researchers hypothesize the same U-shaped dependence of the incidence of brain diseases on the amount of alcohol.That is, brain diseases occur slightly 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 damage only the brain.In general, it is still not possible to say for sure whether moderate drinking can be beneficial or whether alcohol harms us in any quantity.
Studies can show different results, and that's normal: health and life expectancy are influenced by thousands and thousands of factors (diet, habits, sports, 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 for sure is that if there are benefits from small doses of alcohol, they are barely visible against the background of everything else that affects the body.But the harm from alcohol, alas, is detected immediately and does not cause doubts among researchers.So, if the main thing for you is to maintain your health, then it is more reasonable not to drink at all than to try to improve your body with small doses of alcohol.
Alcohol manufacturers 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 dollars on a large-scale study on the benefits of small doses of alcohol.However, officials intercepted correspondence between researchers and representatives of the alcohol industry.It turned out that most of the money came from the alcohol producers, and the results of the study were predetermined.As a result, the study was cancelled.
It must be said that such news should not be surprising: quite often research on the benefits of a particular product is sponsored by the manufacturers.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 research.Another thing is that manufacturers can present the results in a favorable light.For example, publish only those studies that show the benefits of cocoa, and then say that not only cocoa is healthy, but also the chocolate made from it (which is not true).So we have yet 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 if moderate drinkers live longer than non-drinkers.