Briefly: The damage of alcohol is determined by the dose above which damage to internal organs begins: the toxicity threshold.To stay healthy, the body needs to have time to recover after drinking: to do this you need to drink no more than 170 grams of pure alcohol no more often 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.Dry red wine and unpasteurized beer contain useful impurities: vitamins, antioxidants, microelements that are beneficial in small doses and harmful in large doses.
“Drinking a lot is harmful, but drinking too 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 white person with a healthy liver, kidney and brain and a body weight of 70 kg.
But it is not difficult to calculate that an incomplete glass of vodka contains 90 grams of pure alcohol.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 hereditary predisposition, in three years.Not to mention the fact that after a couple of months the dose of alcohol will steadily increase.
The World Health Organization (WHO) considers that weekly consumption of strong alcoholic beverages (more than 25% ethanol by volume) in a quantity greater than 150 ml is sufficient to develop 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 the 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 lesion can only be assessed individually.
So 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 exceeding 170 g per day (538 ml of vodka). One day of alcohol consumption to restore the liver should be alternated with eight days of abstinence. Therefore, the “acceptable” dose per month will be (31/(1+8))*170 (g) in terms of pure alcohol, or 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 harm.
To summarize, let's imagine three people drinking 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 degeneration of fatty liver (and if there is a violation of bile flow or he had hepatitis, then cirrhosis).Anyone who drinks 19 to 90 grams of pure alcohol only damages the brain.
With the development of medicine, doctors' recommendations are gradually changing.A professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London talks about this in an interesting way in his book “To Drink or Not to Drink?”(2020).First of all, alcohol's damage to the liver and cardiovascular system was evident.More recently, British doctors have 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 didn't cause liver damage, then would the damage suddenly start from two or three times the dose?The liver doesn't seem to know how 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 starting from small doses of alcohol the risk level in both sexes is the same, and if it is exceeded, the risk for men increases more rapidly.Now everyone is advised to drink no more than 14 drinks per week: this is 1 liter of 4% beer or 6 glasses of wine with an alcohol content of 13% (175 ml glasses).Furthermore, it is necessary to extend this amount of consumption throughout the week and not drink every day.
Is it better for your health to drink less often or drink more moderately?
For people of European descent with blond hair, light skin and light eyes, if you don't want to give up drinking, it is better to drink less often (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 to regular drinking.For people with dark skin, dark hair and dark eyes the drinking regime is not of fundamental importance, provided that the doses in terms of ethanol are respected.
How different people tolerate alcohol
You should also keep in mind that Caucasians with darker skin and dark hair (Mongoloids are a separate issue) develop addiction during regular drinking sessions much more slowly than people with light skin and blond hair.
This is due to the fact that dark-skinned and dark-skinned people carry the genes of peoples of southern origin.Peoples of southern origin were formed in conditions of consumption of 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 for many generations.
Fair-skinned, blond-haired people carry the genes of northern peoples, who evolutionarily consumed animal foods and vegetables that predominantly produce lactic acid fermentation.For northerners, alcohol turns out to be a xenobiotic (foreign substance), and dependence on it is formed through other mechanisms, very similar to dependence on 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 inherited precisely this type of biochemistry from animals, then we would not be attracted to drinking: 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 the genome of our ancestors changed the 294th amino acid of the enzyme and allowed their bodies to process overripe fruit that fell to the ground and eliminated the need to climb trees for unripe fruit.
Thus, 10 million years ago, the ability to process alcohol helped us come down from the trees and start exploring open spaces to later become homo erectus.And, as often happens in evolution, this ability was subsequently useful for completely different purposes.
The benefits of wine: truth or myth
Principal 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 in the grapes is fermented into alcohol by microorganisms.The only sugar that ferments is the one naturally present 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 lower cholesterol levels and is also 10-20 times more powerful than vitamin E as an antioxidant.Dry red wine contains about 3 times more resveratrol than grape juice from the same grape varieties.
For reference, antioxidants are substances capable of neutralizing 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 plus: they can both protect against cancer and cause it.Their excessive use inherently carries risks.
Dry red wine also contains numerous valuable microelements, for example 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, so daily consumption of dry red in large quantities will not bring any benefit.
A separate article deserved to be dedicated to the question of whether wine is good for the heart.Unfortunately, claims that the so-called Mediterranean diet has heart benefits from moderate amounts of dry red wine have proven to be false.
We must also disappoint those who believed that drinking in small doses could prevent atherosclerosis.No, all modern scientific data indicates the opposite.A good dose of dry red wine is three glasses (about 450 ml) per week.
Is beer healthy?
Another alcoholic drink that can be said to bring health benefits can be considered beer.We are talking, 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, including B vitamins, even if in quantities that do not satisfy the daily requirement;zinc, which is a precious 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 around 600 ml per day.However, daily consumption of beer for several years leads to the formation of addiction in light-skinned, light-eyed and blond-haired people, also due to the content of tranquilizers.Beer addiction develops more unnoticed and is more difficult to treat than “pure” alcohol addiction, which developed, for example, as a consequence of vodka addiction.
Effect of hermesis (hormesis)
As for other alcoholic drinks, we can say that the advantage of their moderate consumption is the effect of the so-called hermesis (hormesis) - a mobilizing reaction of the body to a harmful effect in a small dose.
What kind of buzzword is this? 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 opposite direction to the external influence.If the external influence is not excessive, a mobilizing reaction is obtained (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 one.
This effect is not manifested with moderate, but rather small doses of alcohol: no more than 50 ml of vodka (one 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.It is true?
Alcohol is an antioxidant.When the body is irradiated, active radicals are formed that damage cells.Antioxidants neutralize active radicals.Therefore, although alcohol has not oxidized, it has an anti-radiation effect to a certain extent.The oxidation products of alcohol themselves have a harmful effect similar to the action of active radicals.It will not be possible to cure already manifested radiation sickness with vodka (except symptomatically).
That is, vodka prevention against radiation sickness may look like this: drink a glass and walk through the radiation zone.And at the exit - immediately under a drip.
Rather, before exposure to ionizing radiation, it is advisable to consume dry red wine for prophylactic purposes;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 Sydney-area residents who were aged 55 and over.
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 later life.Perhaps the reason lies in the vasodilatory 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 (consuming 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 observed in those who drank wine in quantities of 2 to 7 glasses (150 ml) per week.
Those who drank more, on the other hand, 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 with long-term and, this is the main difference, causeless mood depression, mental and motor retardation, as well as an inability and reluctance to enjoy natural things such as food or sex (anhedonia).
Why do creative people drink?
Creative people sometimes notice that amazing new ideas come up after drinking.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 then partially restored.Some connections are formed according to a new pattern.This is where intuition is possible, since any 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 early years of alcohol use.It will not be possible to achieve this goal in a targeted way, because we do not know which specific death of neurons will lead to the construction of a more effective "way of thought".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?
Research showing the benefits of moderate drinking is fundamentally flawed.This was stated by a group of scientists from the USA, Canada and Australia.
The scientists analyzed 87 studies.The results showed that moderate drinkers were healthier than non-drinkers.It turned out that most of these studies cannot be trusted.
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 usually made up of people with initially poor health, weakened by alcohol consumption 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 afford to drink as much as they want.
This is why at the end of the study it turns out that moderate drinkers are healthier than absolute abstainers. Scientists once again looked at previous studies and found precisely such people who drink rarely and irregularly.It turned out that they live longer than the participants in the study on moderate alcohol consumption.Their life expectancy was, on average, longer than that of moderate drinkers, that of non-drinkers, and even longer than that of heavy drinkers.
I didn't live to see the research
When studying mortality due to alcohol, elderly patients are selected for the study: over 50 years of age.While alcoholics often die at an early age.But "dead people cannot be included in cohort studies", as a doctor of medical sciences from the Boston Medical Center (USA) comments on the situation.
Heavy drinkers over 50 are people who accidentally survived thanks to particularly good health, genetics, consumption of less dangerous alcoholic beverages, etc.That is why patients with such good health, which not even alcohol can destroy, live even longer than teetotalers, thus spoiling all statistics.It's just that the most resistant remained alive, the rest of the alcoholics died earlier, but we do 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 the period 2006-2010 in the United States.It has been discovered that over 40% of alcohol-related deaths occur before the age of 50.
Drinking has been found to be less dangerous for people over the age of 65: although 35% of alcohol-related deaths also occur at this age, drunkards of this age are 80% less likely to die prematurely (before the expected age).So if you read an article about how drinkers live longer than non-drinkers, know that this pattern is only true for older people.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 drinking is beneficial for the cardiovascular system.Myocardial infarction occurred less often 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 played no role: wine, beer and spirits in moderation equally reduced the risk of heart disease.In 2017, an extensive article was published in the British Medical Journal on this and other studies on this topic.
Researchers suggested the same U-shaped dependence of the incidence of brain diseases on the amount of alcohol.That is, brain diseases occur somewhat 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 only cause brain damage.In general, it is not yet possible to say for sure whether moderate drinking can be beneficial or whether alcohol in any quantity is harmful to us.
Studies can give different results, and this is normal: health and life expectancy are influenced by thousands and thousands of factors (nutrition, habits, sports, climate, genes, whatever).Isolating the influence of one of them is a difficult task that requires a huge number of topics, 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, then they are barely visible against the background of everything that affects the body.But the harm of alcohol, unfortunately, is detected immediately and does not raise doubts among researchers.So, if the main thing for you is to maintain 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.) spent 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 alcohol producers and that 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: very often research into the benefits of a particular product is sponsored by manufacturers.For example, some companies fund much of the research into the benefits of cocoa, while others sponsor research into the benefits of yogurt.This is not direct corruption and anyone can see who ordered the search.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 claiming that not only cocoa is healthy, but also the chocolate made from it (which is not true).We therefore have 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 whether moderate drinkers live longer than non-drinkers.