Does alcohol hurt you or help you?

Medical science has long believed that excessive drinking causes aging and early death, but a Danish study of 13,064 men and 11,459 women, which studied the participants from the 1970's when the study commenced, to the end of their lives, showed that moderate drinkers were actually living longer than teetotalers.

And yet - when you look at the statistics from places that have heavy drinking like Glasgow, Scotland, where drunkeness is part of the national culture, or Russia, where vodka drinking is a national passtime, they clearly show illness and lower life expectancy.

A clue to what might be going on is in the rest of the Danish study - the drinkers who lived a long life were all middle class. So it was the rest of their lifestyle that was protecting them.

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So what were the Danes doing that the people in Russia and Scotland weren't?

Alcohol puts a great deal of pressure on the liver and kidneys to detox the alcohol and turn it into vinegar and pass it out of the body. Vinegar is an acid though, so you need to drink a fair amount of water to help your kidneys to dilute it to protect your organs.

Therefore you need to do two things to protect yourself when you drink - the drinking needs to be slow, so that the liver isn't overwhelmed and can handle what you throw at it, and you need to be well hydrated with water.

The key to middle class drinking is that it tends to accompany food which has a protective effect. Fatty food will slow the rate at which the alcohol enters the intestines. It is only when it gets to the intestines that it hits the bloodstream. If you line your stomach with cheese, and drink water inbetween drinking wine, the amount of alcohol you consume will be lower, and the rate it enters the bloodstream will be slower.

Leafy green vegetables help too

Alcohol also inhibits the body's ability to absorb B vitamins. If you drink heavily and only eat junk food, then you will be severely deficient in B vitamins, and it is likely that this deficiency is causing ageing and illness.

In the Danish study, the "healthy" drinkers were eating plenty of good fresh food. Eating a lot of dark salad greens at lunch time (a time of day where no alcohol is present and hence their vitamin B absorption is good), meant that they weren't suffering the deficiencies that the people in Glasgow were.

The real problem with alcoholism is that people neglect the rest of their lives

They stop eating properly, they don't drink enough water, they don't get enough sleep. The pressure on their organs is immense because they arn't getting the nutrients they need to do their job.

Some people drink because of stress - alcohol raises the serotonin in the brain, making you feel better.

But there are other ways to raise serotonin so that you feel good and arn't inclined to drink so much, such as getting some sunshine. Just standing outdoors in the light first thing in the morning, and letting it set your circadian clock and hit your skin helps, even in winter. Our modern lifestyles mean that we get less sunlight in winter than our ancestors did in the same climate, because we are indoors all the time. Go outdoors in the morning and roll up your sleeves, turn your face to the sky and get some sun, even ten minutes in winter will make you feel better, despite the light being weak.

Conclusion

Alcohol can ease social occasions, and having a fine glass of Merlot is one of life's joys.

However, make sure you take steps to ensure your body can cope. Drink a lot of water. Eat a lot of salad greens (and take a B vitamin pill at breakfast if you have overdone things). Don't drink every day, give your liver and kidneys the chance to recover. And get some sunshine!