in short: Alcohol damage is determined by the dose above which damage to internal organs begins - the toxicity threshold.To maintain health, the body should have time to recover after drinking: to do this, you do not need to drink more than 170 grams of pure alcohol no more than once every 8 days.The advantage of moderate doses of alcohol may be that the body mobilizes in response to small doses of harmful substances.Red dry wine and unpasteurized beer contain useful impurities: vitamins, antioxidants, microelements that 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 from 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 there are 90 grams of pure alcohol 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 addiction 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 be constantly increasing.
The World Health Organization (WHO) considers that the weekly consumption of strong (more than 25 vol.% ethanol) alcoholic beverages in an amount greater than 150 ml is sufficient to cause alcohol addiction.
Note: if a person has suffered from viral hepatitis (except hepatitis A), or has other chronic liver diseases, then the safe dose for the liver in the period without deterioration 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 greater 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. Thus, the "acceptable" monthly dose will be (31/(1+8))*170 (g) in terms of pure alcohol, i.e. 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 should increase the intervals between drinking sessions - this is the only way to reduce the damage.
To sum it all up, let's try to imagine three people drinking 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 bile flow disorder or hepatitis, then cirrhosis).Anyone who drinks between 19 and 90 grams of pure alcohol will only harm the brain.
With the development of medicine, doctors' recommendations are gradually changing.The professor of neuropsychopharmacology at the Imperial College in London talks about it interestingly in his book "To drink or not to drink?"(2020).First of all, the damage of alcohol to the liver and cardiovascular system was obvious.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, the drinkers were not particularly trying to stay within these limits: after all, if 14 drinks do not harm the liver, then the damage would suddenly start from a dose two or three times higher?The liver can't seem to count.
In the 21st century, we have learned much more.Accurate 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 a low level of health risk".In 2016, British doctors equalized this dose for men and women, because the risk level for both sexes is the same from small doses of alcohol, and if it is exceeded, the risk for men increases faster.Now everyone is recommended not to drink more than 14 drinks a week: this is 1 liter of 4% beer or 6 glasses of 13% wine (175ml glasses).Moreover, you have to extend this amount of drinking for a whole week and not drink every day.
Is it better for your health to drink less or more moderately?
For light-haired, light-skinned, light-eyed people of European origin, 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 risk of rapid addiction development with regular drinking.For dark-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed people, the drinking regime is not essential, provided that the doses in terms of ethanol are respected.
How different peoples tolerate alcohol
It should also be borne in mind that dark-skinned and dark-haired Caucasians (Mongoloids are a separate topic) develop addiction during regular drinking much more slowly than light-skinned and light-haired people.
This is due to the fact that dark-skinned and dark-skinned people carry the genes of people of southern origin.The peoples of southern origin were born in conditions of consumption of large quantities of fruits and berries, which contain 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 and light-haired people carry the genes of northern peoples, who have evolved to consume food of animal origin and vegetables that produce predominantly lactic acid fermentation.For northerners, it turns out that alcohol is a xenobiotic (foreign substance), and addiction to it occurs through other mechanisms, very similar to addiction to other weak poisons.
Where do people get the ability to metabolize alcohol?
All mammals have the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase, which breaks down alcohol, but it has difficulty processing ethyl alcohol, although it copes much better with other alcohols.If man had inherited such a biochemistry from animals, then we would not be attracted to drinking: even the smallest doses of alcohol, which are found in overripe fruit, would cause strong intoxication in the body, not to mention strong drinks.
However, scientists managed to discover that our ancestors, after the evolutionary branches of orangutans separated from them, but before we parted with gorillas and chimpanzees, appeared a special subtype of this enzyme - alcohol dehydrogenase "fourth class" (ADH4).A small mutation in the genome of our ancestors changed the 294th amino acid of an enzyme and allowed their bodies to process overripe fruit that fell to the ground and eliminated the need to climb trees for unripe fruit.
So, 10 million years ago, the ability to process alcohol helped us descend from the trees and start exploring open spaces to later become homo erectus.And, as often happens in evolution, this skill was later useful for completely different purposes.
Benefits of wine - truth or myth
Main the benefits of alcoholic beverages comes of course from 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 sugar that is fermented is that which is naturally found in grapes.Therefore, the ethanol content in dry wines, as a rule, does not exceed 13%.
The health benefits primarily come 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, which are constantly generated in the body and are considered one of the aging factors.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 microelements, e.g. rubidium, which has soothing, anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic effects.
It should be remembered that an excess of rubidium is more harmful to the body than its deficiency, so daily consumption of dry red paint in large quantities will not bring any benefit.
A separate article had to be 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 data 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, first of all, 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 vitamins, although in quantities that do not meet daily needs;zinc, which is a valuable micronutrient 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, herbal analogues of the 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 leads to addiction in people with light skin, light eyes, light hair, including due to the content of tranquilizers.Addiction to beer develops imperceptibly and is more difficult to treat compared to addiction to "pure" alcohol, which developed, for example, as a result of addiction to vodka.
Hermesis effect (hormesis)
As for 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 buzzword is this? Let's figure it out now
This effect is as follows: our body tries to remain the same, despite external influences (homeostasis), and therefore, in response to the introduction of poison, it makes efforts directed in the direction opposite to the external influence.If the external influence is not excessive, then a mobilizing reaction is achieved (the usual phases 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 occur with moderate, but rather small doses of alcohol: no more than 50 ml of vodka (a spoonful of alcohol), no more than twice a week.
Otherwise, this effect exists for any adverse effect and is usually studied using radiation.
Does alcohol protect against radiation?
Is it true that alcohol protects against radiation?For example, after the radioactive explosion, there were stories about how radiation sickness was treated with vodka.Is that true?
Alcohol is an antioxidant.When the body is irradiated, active radicals are created that damage cells.Antioxidants neutralize active radicals.Therefore, although alcohol has not oxidized, it acts against radiation to some extent.Alcohol oxidation products themselves have a harmful effect similar to that of active radicals.It will not be possible to treat radiation sickness that has already appeared with vodka (except symptomatically).
That is, the prevention of radiation sickness with vodka can look like this: drink a glass and go further through the radiation zone.And at the exit - right below IV.
Instead, 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 say 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 55 years old.
It turned out that people who regularly consumed up to 56 grams of pure alcohol per day during their lifetime (which is the amount in 180 ml of vodka, or 600 ml of wine, or 1440 ml of beer) have a lower chance of getting 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 exaggerate: patients who drink excessively (who consume more than 56 grams of pure alcohol per day) have much more serious hearing problems than abstinent 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 observed in those who drank wine in quantities of 2 to 7 glasses (150 ml) per week.
Those who drank more than this, on the contrary, had a higher than normal risk of developing depression.Depression and bad mood should not be confused.Major depressive disorder is a disease manifested by long-term and - this is the main difference - unreasonable 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 incredible 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 were cut off from the neural network, synaptic connections were broken, and then partially restored.Some relationships are formed according to a new pattern.Insight is possible there, since all knowledge and understanding is the passage of electrical signals in the brain along a certain path.
However, such insights are a happy accident that can happen in the first few years of drinking.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 "thought pathway".It is much more likely that the death of neurons will lead to a decrease in mental abilities, and 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.That's what a group of scientists from the USA, Canada and Australia say.
Scientists analyzed 87 studies.According to their results, moderate drinkers are healthier than non-drinkers.It turns out that most of these studies cannot be trusted.
The main drawback of these studies was that everyone was included in the group of non-drinkers: 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 group of abstainers is usually made up of people who are initially in poor health, impaired by alcohol or serious illnesses.And the group of moderate consumers includes people who do not suffer from alcohol addiction and are generally healthy, so they can afford to drink as much as they want.
That's why at the end of the study it turned out that moderate consumers are healthier than abstainers. Scientists once again looked back at previous studies and found just such people who drink rarely and irregularly.It turns out that they live longer than the participants in the study of moderate alcohol consumption.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.
I didn't experience the research
When studying mortality from alcohol, older patients are chosen for research: over 50 years old.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.
Drinkers over 50 are people who accidentally survived due to particularly good health, genetics, consumption of less dangerous alcoholic beverages, etc.Because of this, patients in such good health, which even alcohol could not destroy, live longer than abstainers and thereby spoil all statistics.Only the most resistant remained alive, other alcoholics died earlier, but young people are not taken into account in mortality studies.
Naimi, together with the well-known Tanya Cikritz 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 turns out that more than 40% of deaths from alcohol occur before the age of 50.
It turns out that drinking is least dangerous for people over 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 beneficial?Research results
A Dutch doctor conducted a study in 1999, the results of which suggest that moderate alcohol consumption is beneficial for the cardiovascular system.Myocardial infarction occurred most rarely 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.
In abstinent abstainers, the risk of myocardial infarction was even slightly higher, and in those who consume alcohol, it was significantly higher.In this case, the choice of drink did not play a role: wine, beer and spirits in moderate quantities equally reduced the risk of heart disease.An extensive article was published in the British Medical Journal in 2017 about this and other studies on this topic.
The researchers proposed the same U-shaped dependence of the frequency of brain diseases on the amount of alcohol.That is, brain diseases occur somewhat more often in those who do not drink, rarely in those who drink moderately, and much more often in those who drink heavily. In this case, it turns out that even small doses of alcohol only harm the brain.In general, it is not yet possible to say with certainty whether moderate drinking can be beneficial or whether alcohol is harmful to us in any amount.
Studies can show different results, and that's normal: health and life expectancy are affected 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 with certainty is that if there are benefits from small doses of alcohol, then they are barely visible against the background of everything else that affects the body.But the harm from alcohol, unfortunately, is immediately detected and does not cause any doubts among researchers.So, if your main concern is to preserve your health, then it is wiser 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.) will spend 100 million dollars on a large study on the benefits of small doses of alcohol.However, officials intercepted correspondence between the researchers and representatives of the alcohol industry.It turned out that most of the money was obtained from alcohol manufacturers, 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 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 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, publishing only those studies that show the benefits of cocoa, and then saying that not only cocoa is healthy, but also chocolate made from it (which is not true).So we have another reason to be critical of what is written about science in the press.
To finally put an end to this question, scientists are trying to find out whether moderate drinkers live longer than non-drinkers.