Alcohol is good for your health!
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Read on.
To your health
Researchers are uncovering new links between moderate drinking and longevity
By Carol Ann Rintzler
When scientists talk about the relationship between alcohol and heart disease, the words "J-curve" often pop up. What's a J-curve? A statistical graph in the shape of a J.
Regarding alcohol and heart disease, the lower peak on the left of the J shows the risk among teetotalers, the high spike on the right shows the risk among those who drink too much, and the curve in the center shows the risk in the moderate middle. In other words, the J-curve says that people who drink moderately have a lower risk of heart disease than people who drink too much or not at all.
That's nice. This is better. According to a recent report from the Alberta (Canada) Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission, the J-curve may also describe the relationship between alcohol and stroke, alcohol and diabetes, alcohol and bone loss, and alcohol and longevity. The simple fact is that moderate drinkers appear to live longer, healthier lives than alcohol abusers and those who don't drink at all. Skoal!
ALCOHOL AND HEART ATTACK
Yawn. After you've said red wine, what else is there to say?
How about this: Beer. Researchers at Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem divided 48 men with coronary artery disease into two groups. The first got 12 ounces of pale lager a day for a month; the second got mineral water. Both groups ate a fruit-and-veggie-rich diet. In the end, 21 of the 24 beer drinkers had lowered their bad cholesterol, raised their good cholesterol and reduced the activity of fibrinogen, a natural clot-maker in blood. None of these changes occurred among those drinking mineral water, but nobody in either group had a heart attack during the study.
ALCOHOL AND STROKE
Studies on alcohol and stroke conflict. Some say alcohol may ward off strokes. Others say no.
The latest news is that an alcohol-plus-caffeine cocktail may prevent additional brain damage after a stroke has occurred. Last year, neurologist James C. Grotta and a team of researchers at the University of Texas-Houston Medical School whipped up an experimental drug they named caffeinol. One dose delivers as much caffeine as two cups of strong coffee plus the alcohol in one drink. The Texans induced stroke in lab rats and gave caffeinol to half the injured rats within two hours of the stroke. The treated animals had up to 80% less brain damage than the untreated ones. Human tests have found that caffeinol is safe; future studies will tell whether it's effective.
ALCOHOL AND DIABETES
Moderate drinking may reduce a healthy older woman's risk of developing diabetes. At USDA's Agricultural Research Lab (ARS) at Beltsville, Md., investigators randomly assigned 63 healthy postmenopausal women volunteers to one of three two-month-long regimens: no alcohol, 1/2 ounce a day or 1 ounce a day. The 51 women who completed the study took blood tests to measure their "fasting insulin levels" (the level of insulin in their blood after 12 hours without food or drink).
Guess what? Among women who drank 1 ounce a day, blood insulin dropped by 19% compared to no change for those drinking less. Levels of trigly-cerides, another risk factor for both heart disease and diabetes, also fell among the women who drank.
ALCOHOL ALTERNATIVES
If you absolutely, positively hate the taste of alcohol, switch to grape juice, which delivers wine's beneficial plant chemical, resveratrol, without the alcohol. Suppose you also absolutely, positively hate grape juice? Pick a pack of peanuts. A 1998 analysis from the USDA research service in Raleigh, N.C., shows peanuts have 1.7 micrograms to 3.7 micrograms resveratrol per gram vs. 0.6 micrograms to 8.0 micrograms in red wine. This fact may explain data from the longrunning Harvard University/Brigham and Women's Hospital Nurses Health Study, which shows that women who eat 1 ounce of nuts a day have a lower risk of heart disease. So let's see, wine, grape juice, peanuts ... decisions, decisions.
ALCOHOL AND AGE
Alcohol's beneficial effects seem to get more beneficial as you get older. Among men younger than 35 and women younger than 55, teetotalers have a lower risk of death than moderate drinkers do. But pass the 65-year mark, and the British Medical Journal says as few as three drinks a week for women and eight drinks a week for men becomes protective. BMJ reports that moderate drinking may save as many as 5,000 older lives a year, perhaps because older drinkers avoid the risky behavior that trips younger drinkers into potentially fatal accidents.
ALCOHOL NUTRITION FACTS LABEL
Right now, alcoholic beverages are the only entries in the food and drink market sold without a Nutrition Facts label. The National Consumers League and the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest are petitioning the Food and Drug Administration to create an ingredients label for alcoholic beverages. The label would show the ingredients, the number of standard servings in the container and the alcohol content and calorie count per serving, so you can compare products - as well as control what you drink.
ALCOHOL AND INTELLECT
MRI studies have shown that even moderate drinking knocks off some brain cells. But does this mean a loss of intellect? Maybe not.
Typically, a person's scores on tests for memory, reasoning and decision-making decline about 1 point per decade before age 60 and 2-3 points every decade after age 60. Nonetheless, a recent 12-year, 1,488-person survey in Maryland suggests that regular, moderate drinkers score better over time than teetotalers on the Mini-Mental State Examination, a standard cognition test.
Alcohol and Bones
Several reliable studies have positively linked chronic alcoholism to an increased risk of fractures due to loss of bone-mineral density. And drinking in moderation may have the opposite effect, especially in postmenopausal women, a group at high risk for weakened bones.
Researchers at the Bone Metabolism Unit and the Cardiac Center of Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha measured bone density among 297 female nondrinkers and 148 imbibers age 65-77. In the end, women who consumed about an ounce of alcohol a day, the FDA definition of moderate drinking, had higher total bone density, higher spinal bone density, and higher forearm bone density than women who drank more or less or none at all.
Your body destroys old bone and builds new bone every day. As you age, you continue to break down old bone but lose your ability to build new bone, hence the characteristic loss of bone called osteoporosis. The Creighton researchers suggest that alcohol may lower the concentration of anti-bone hormones, thus preserving existing bone.
Originally published on March 29, 2004
http://www.dewijnhoek.nl/engdewijnhoek/news/research.htm
Now you can drink without feeling guilty anymore! -
they forgot Alcohol and the Road
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but that's besides the point....Originally posted by sgboy2004:they forgot Alcohol and the Road 
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We already knew it long ago. Doctor had advise drinking of 2 cans of beer per week for adult man or a wine glass.
About half for woman. For good health. -
I thought it's quite well known? Just don't drink too much lah. Moderation is key.
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Old news... quite a lot of research on it already.
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the bottom line is not to drink too much. just moderate. too much can get cancer eg liver..etc
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the problem lies in the definition of "too much" ...Originally posted by Battlecrusier:the bottom line is not to drink too much. just moderate. too much can get cancer eg liver..etc 
get me? -
paiseh...
me caveman. -
too much means above 10 bottles of alcohol
