Briefly: The harm from alcohol is determined by the dose beyond which damage to internal organs begins – the toxicity threshold.To maintain health, the body needs time to recover after drinking: to do this, you need 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 the mobilization of the body 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.
“Drinking too much is bad, but drinking too little is boring.”
What is moderate drinking?
In terms of pure ethanol toxicity threshold (that is, 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 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, 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 few 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 quantities exceeding 150 ml is sufficient to form alcohol dependence.
Note: if a person has suffered from viral hepatitis (except hepatitis A) or has other chronic liver diseases, the safe dose for the liver during a 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 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 quantities exceeding 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. 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 of alcohol, you should increase the intervals between drinking sessions - this is the only way to reduce the damage.
In short, let's try to imagine three people who drink once every 8 days.Anyone who exceeds the limit 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 liver degeneration (and if there is a violation of bile flow or hepatitis, then cirrhosis).Anyone who drinks 19 to 90 grams of pure alcohol will only harm their 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).Firstly, alcohol's damage to the liver and cardiovascular system was obvious.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, drinkers didn't particularly try to stay within these limits: after all, if 14 drinks don't cause liver damage, then would damage start suddenly with a dose two or three times larger?The liver doesn't seem to be able to count.
In the 21st century, we learn 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 low risk to health”.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 for men increases more quickly.It is now recommended that everyone drink a maximum of 14 drinks per week: 1 liter of 4% beer or 6 glasses of wine with a 13% content (175 ml glasses).Furthermore, you need to stretch this amount of drinking throughout the week and not drink every day.
Is it better for your health to drink less frequently or in moderation?
For people with fair hair, fair skin and light eyes, of European descent, if you do not want to stop drinking, it is better to drink less frequently (in short-term drinking mode).Less often means no more than once a month, which is due to the danger of rapid development of addiction with regular alcohol consumption.For people with dark skin, dark hair and dark eyes, the consumption regime is not of fundamental importance, as long as the doses in terms of ethanol are observed.
How different people tolerate alcohol
You should also keep in mind that darker-skinned, dark-haired Caucasians (Mongoloids are a separate issue) develop dependence during regular drinking sessions much more slowly than fair-skinned, fair-haired people.
This is due to the fact that people with dark and olive skin carry genes from people of southern origin.People of southern origin were able to consume large quantities 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.
Light-skinned, blond-haired people carry the genes of northern peoples, who evolutionarily consumed foods of animal and plant origin that predominantly produce lactic acid fermentation.For northerners, alcohol turns out to be a xenobiotic (foreign substance), and addiction to it 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 copes much better with other alcohols.If a person had inherited exactly this type of biochemistry from animals, we would not be driven to drink: even the smallest doses of alcohol, contained in overripe fruits, would cause severe intoxication in the body, not to mention strong drinks.
However, scientists managed to find out that our ancestors, after the evolutionary branch of orangutans separated from them, but before we separated from gorillas and chimpanzees, a special subtype of this enzyme appeared - alcohol dehydrogenase of the “fourth class” (ADH4).A small mutation in our ancestors' genome changed the 294th amino acid of the enzyme and made it possible for their bodies to process overripe fruit that fell to the ground, and eliminated the need to climb trees to obtain unripe fruit.
So, 10 million years ago, the ability to process alcohol helped us come down from the trees and start exploring open spaces, only to later become homo erectus.And, as often happens in evolution, this ability was later useful for completely different purposes.
The benefits of wine – truth or myth
Main benefits of alcoholic drinks comes, of course, of dry red wine.Dry wine is a product of grape fermentation (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 fermented sugar is the one found naturally in grapes.Therefore, the ethanol content in dry wines, as a rule, does not exceed 13%.
The health benefits mainly come 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 approximately 3 times more resveratrol than grape juice from the same grape varieties.
For reference, antioxidants are substances that can neutralize 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 cancer and cause cancer.Excessive use of them brings risks in itself.
Dry red wine also contains several valuable microelements, e.g. rubidium, which has a calming, 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, therefore daily consumption of dry red wine in large quantities will not bring any benefit.
A separate article should 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 due to moderate amounts 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 otherwise.A healthy dose of dry red wine is three glasses (approximately 450 ml) per week.
Is beer healthy?
Another alcoholic beverage that can be considered capable of bringing health benefits can be considered beer.We are talking, firstly, about unpasteurized beer, called “live”, which prevailed in the country 20 years ago and is now a rarity.
Beer contains yeast products, including B vitamins, although in quantities that do not satisfy daily needs;zinc, which is a valuable microelement necessary for the synthesis of insulin.The condition of the skin and 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 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 has led to the formation of dependence in people with fair skin, light eyes and blond hair, including due to the tranquilizer content.Beer addiction develops 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)
In relation to other alcoholic beverages, we can say that the benefit of their moderate consumption is the effect of the so-called hermese (hormesis) - a 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 the poison, makes efforts directed in the direction opposite 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 doses, but rather with small doses of alcohol: no more than 50 ml of vodka (one tablespoon of alcohol), no more than twice a week.
In fact, 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, stories appeared about how radiation sickness was treated with vodka.That is 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 oxidized, it has an anti-radiation effect to a certain extent.The alcohol oxidation products 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 with vodka (except symptomatically).
In other words, preventing radiation sickness with vodka can be like this: drink a glass and move forward through the radiation zone.And at the exit - immediately under an IV.
Instead, before 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 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 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 (and this is the amount contained in 180 ml of vodka, or 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 (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 came to the conclusion 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 that, on the contrary, 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 in long-term and - this is the main difference - causeless mood depression, mental and motor retardation, as well as 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 cut off from the neural network, synaptic connections are interrupted and partially restored.Some connections are formed according to a new pattern.This is where insight is possible, since any knowledge and understanding is the passage of electrical signals in the brain along a certain path.
However, these perceptions are a happy accident that can happen in the early years of consumption.It will not be possible to achieve this on purpose, because we do not know which specific neuron death will lead to the construction of a more successful “route to thoughts”.It is much more likely that the death of neurons leads to a decrease in mental abilities and that regular alcohol consumption leads to alcoholism.
What is healthier: drinking in moderation or not drinking at all?
The research showing the benefits of moderate drinking is flawed at its core.This is what a group of scientists from the USA, Canada and Australia say.
Scientists analyzed 87 studies.According to the results, it was found that moderate drinkers were healthier than non-drinkers.Most of these studies have been found to be unreliable.
The main disadvantage 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 so as not to become alcoholics.It turns out that a group of teetotalers is generally made up of people with initially poor health, compromised by drinking or serious illnesses.And the group of moderate drinkers includes people who do not suffer from alcohol dependence and are generally healthy, so they can drink as much as they want.
This is why, at the end of the study, it turned out that moderate drinkers are healthier than absolute abstainers. Scientists once again analyzed previous studies and found people who drink rarely and irregularly.They were found to live longer than study participants who drank 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.
Didn't live to see the research
When studying mortality from alcohol, elderly patients are selected for the study: those over 50 years of age.Whereas alcoholics often die earlier.But “dead people cannot be included in cohort studies”, as a doctor of medical sciences from Boston Medical Center (USA) comments on the situation.
Heavy drinkers over 50 are people who survived accidentally due to particularly good health, genetics, consumption of less dangerous alcoholic beverages, etc.That is why patients with such good health, which even alcohol could not destroy, live even longer than teetotalers and thus ruin all statistics.However, the most resilient remained alive, the remaining alcoholics died earlier, but we did not take young people into account in mortality studies.
Naimi, together with Tanya Chikritz, already known to us, 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 has been shown to be less dangerous for people over 65: although 35% of alcohol-related deaths also occur at this age, drunks of this age are 80% less likely to die prematurely (before their predicted age).So if you read an article about how people who drink live longer than people who don't drink, know that this pattern only applies to the elderly.Young alcoholics are more likely to die young.
Can alcohol be beneficial?Search results
In 1999, a Dutch doctor conducted a study whose results suggest that moderate alcohol consumption is beneficial for the cardiovascular system.Myocardial infarction occurred less frequently in patients who drank alcohol in moderate doses: from 14 to 56 grams of pure alcohol per day, which is less than a glass of vodka.
Among absolute abstainers, the risk of myocardial infarction was even slightly higher, and among alcohol abusers it was significantly higher.At the same time, the choice of drink did not influence: wine, beer and spirits in moderation also reduced the risk of heart disease.An extensive article was published in the British Medical Journal about this and other studies on this topic in 2017.
The researchers suggested the same U-shaped dependence of the incidence of brain diseases on the amount of alcohol.In other words, brain diseases occur a little more frequently in those who don't drink, rarely in those who drink moderately and much more frequently in those who drink a lot. In this case, even small doses of alcohol only cause damage to the brain.In general, it is not yet possible to say with certainty whether moderate alcohol consumption can be beneficial or whether alcohol is harmful to us in any quantity.
Studies can present different results, and that 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, 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 to small doses of alcohol, they are barely visible in the context of everything else that affects the body.But the harm from alcohol, unfortunately, is detected immediately and does not raise any doubts among researchers.So, if the main thing for you is to maintain your 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 (NIH) was going to spend 100 million dollars on a large-scale study on the benefits of small doses of alcohol.However, authorities intercepted correspondence between researchers and representatives of the alcohol industry.It turned out that most of the money was received from 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: research into the benefits of a particular product is often sponsored by manufacturers.For example, some companies pay for much of the research into the benefits of cocoa, while others sponsor research into the benefits of yogurt.This is not direct bribery and anyone can see who commissioned the research.Another thing is that manufacturers can present the results in a favorable light.For example, only publish studies that show the benefits of cocoa and then say that not only cocoa is healthy, but also chocolate made with it (which is not true).Therefore, we have yet another reason to criticize what is written about science in the press.
To finally put an end to this issue, scientists are trying to find out whether moderate drinkers live longer than non-drinkers.