Health Benefits (or Dis-benefits) of Drinking Alcohol

Every day we are bombarded with articles about the benefits or dis-benefits of drinking alcohol. I wish everyone  would stop.

There are probably no direct benefits for your health from drinking wine, beer or whisky other than making you feel good if you consume the alcohol with friends in a convivial atmosphere. The health benefits of consuming anti-oxidants can easily be obtained elsewhere.

It is unethical to conduct experiments on human beings and it is almost impossible to test for independent variables with regard to food and drink.

All the evidence regarding the health benefits of one food or beverage or another is derived from statistical analysis or the review of one report or another. There is no direct evidence that drinking one glass of wine or beer a day improves your health.

Equally, there is no direct evidence of how much daily consumption of alcohol is dangerous for an individual's health. Healthy drinking recommendations are also based on statistics derived from the whole population.

For some people it is dangerous to consume any alcohol especially including ex-alcoholics and sufferers of liver disease.

Some people can probably safely consume more that the recommended daily doses without ill effects.

It is down to commonsense not to consume too much alcohol, or junk food for that matter, for if you do you will certainly damage your  health. You do not need the government or the health authorities to tell you this.

It is also a certainty that you are going to die whether you eat junk food or drink beer or not. So in the final analysis all the statistics are meaningless. It is being born that eventually kills you but it is how you live your life along the way that matters. Sipping a few glasses of wine certainly makes the inexorable fact of death more palatable.