"Anything in limit is good & excess of everything is bad"
You
might have come across this sentence many a times in your life.This sentence holds good for alcohol as it is true for any other thing in this world.So, when one says drinking alcohol is good, it refers to
moderate drinking and not all drinking habits.But the question here is how much one should drink in order to get
beneficial effects of alcohol?I am going to answer this question in the paragraphs that follows.
Before I tell you about the safe amount of alcohol to be taken I wish to tell you some of the beneficial effects of drinking in moderation.The most convincing evidence is link between alcohol drinking and
heart-attack .Many of the studies suggest that moderate drinking increases the amount of "good cholesterol"-
HDL which prevents the occurence of heart-attacks.Another evidence in support of this is that,moderate drinking causes thinning of blood thus, preventing blockage of arteries supplying
heart .
Other good effects of moderate drinking are-
1)Decrease in prevalence of
Diabetes in both men and women.It has been observed that moderate drinking increases the sensivity of body to the
insulin .
2)A correlation between moderate alcohol drinking and
Dementia has been observed.A study has been conducted on a group of older adults in their mid 70''s and it was found that people with moderate social drinking habits had reduced risk of dementia.The mechanism behind this is not understood at present.
In the above paragraphs,I have repeatedly used the word " moderate drinking".Now I will tell you what can be considered as moderate drinking.Drinking can be said as moderate if a man drinks two drinks a day and
a women who is not pregnant takes one drink a day.A medium glass of wine,1.5 Oz of spirit and a bottle of beer contain almost equivalent amount of alcohol and constitute one drink.
Pattern of drinking is also important.According to studies, above two drinks even for a single day in a week is harmful than a drink for ,say,3-4 days a week.So,it clearly indicates that alog with amount of drinking,pattern of drinking is also important.One must understand that taking five drinks in one day and five drinks in five days in entirely different.
Again a question here is is beneficial effects of moderate drinking on heart same for men and women?The answer is "NO".While it is clearly evidenced that moderate drinking is good for heart in elderly and adult male,the same is not supported by data for women.So,if a women is drinking in moderation for good health then probably she is mistaken.
Risks of moderate drinking--There are certain risk involved with moderate drinking which one must know.
1) One of the most important risks of moderate drinking is the predisposition to
breast cancer .There is certain evidence of relation between drinking and breast cancer.
2)One of the other risk associated with moderate drinking is occurence of permanent liver damage in a person infected with
hepatitis C virus .
The final opinion can be summed up in one line."If you are not a women in reproductive age group and not infected with Hepatitis C virus then moderate drinking is certainly beneficial for your health especially your heart".