I went home for summer break, and all of a sudden my parents are drinking wine every night because now they're saying alcohol is healthy. Before all they could talk about was how bad it was for your liver!Are they going through a mid-life crisis, or is drinking actually good for you?
- To Booze or Not to Booze?
We've all been taught about how alcohol can be seriously hazardous to your health, but the potential benefits of booze aren't often covered in 8th-grade health class. It's certainly true that when enjoyed in excess the once tonic properties of alcohol rapidly become toxic, poisoning tissues and causing major medical problems including cirrhosis of the liver, pancreatitis and irreversible brain damage. It's also an unfortunate reality that alcohol consumption can lead to debilitating addiction, devastating the personal and professional lives of millions of Americans, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. However, while alcohol's toxic and addictive potential is very real and is all-too-commonly realized, it doesn't necessarily mean that booze is all bad.
This comes as good news to those among us with a certain fondness for the fermented fluids, but what are the potential positives to drinking? According to the Harvard School of Public Health, one of the most obvious benefits of alcohol is its ability to facilitate social interaction and temper mild stress. The well-timed drink has long served as an effective social lubricant, helping make boring dates, office holiday parties and family reunions tolerable for the last 10,000 years of human history. But the potential benefits of alcohol intake are not only social. If you can look past their wizened livers, blown-out pancreases and atrophied brains, the arteries of alcoholics are classically clean and pristine on autopsy. Everclear, it turns out, serves as a potent Roto-Rooter for the circulatory system.
Fortunately, you don't have to cradle an ABC brown-bag 24/7 to reap the cardiovascular rewards of alcohol: These effects can be achieved with moderate alcohol intake too. The definition of "moderate" drinking is a little shaky, although most studies put it at around one to two drinks a day. In a review of more than 100 prospective studies, the Harvard School of Public Health notes a consistent inverse relationship between moderate alcohol consumption and cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack and stroke.
One could argue that such imbibing patterns are associated with improved health because moderate drinkers tend to display balance in other lifestyle areas as well. People who partake of the occasional cold one, for example, are more likely than their tea-totaling and keg-standing counterparts to engage in regular exercise and to practice healthy eating. However, even when these confounding factors are controlled for, moderate alcohol intake still improves cardiovascular health. This is likely due to alcohol's anti-clotting properties as well as its ability to increase good cholesterol, or HDL. Certain studies have found red wine to be a particularly potent heart-helper, although the Harvard School of Public Health's literature review didn't detect a clear difference in health benefits based on beverage choice, which theoretically means that even that skunky PBR could help clean out your blood vessels.
Before you use the potential pluses of beer to justify your next binge, it's important to note that the value of even moderate amounts of alcohol varies based on who's throwing it back. A 30 year-old man, for instance, has a precipitous increase in accidents and trauma with even a single drink a day, so in his case, the risks of boozing technically outweigh the quantifiable benefits. In fact, the cardiovascular bonus points of drinking don't really start to accumulate until middle age, when the incidence of alcohol-related traumas declines and the number of heart-related health problems increases.
The moral of the story is that if you are going to partake in the Bacchalian beverages, keep things in moderation and always drink responsibly so that you live long enough to enjoy the cardiovascular rewards of our favorite fermented fluids!
Anne Mills is a Cavalier Daily Health & Sexuality Columnist. She can be reached at mills@cavalierdaily.com or through the Sex & Balances submission page at cavalierdaily.com/sex.asp. This column should be used for educational purposes only and is not meant to substitute advice from your doctor.
Read More
U.Va. students and physicians team up for another year of free kidney screenings
By Merrill Hart | November 5, 2024Saturday’s screening marked the first by KDSAP at Portico Church, near IX Art Park.
U.Va. Health sees a spike in COVID-19 cases
By Emily Horn | September 4, 2023U.Va. Health ended their vaccination requirements in August, and masks were made optional in most hospital areas in early April.
U.Va. Cancer Center harnesses $12 million grant to support opportunities for undergraduates, ongoing research and new center
By Ellen Wu | January 12, 2023The grant provides an opportunity to establish the Center for Systems Analysis of Stress-Adapted Cancer Organelles, which seeks to find the cause of cancer in individual organelles.
