It’s long been said that drinking alcohol profusely affects your health and will cause you to have a shorter life, but now a new study is stating that if you drink a pint a day then it reduces your risk of dying young by 25%. Nice.
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Unfortunately, it isn’t actually as simple as that and it literally means just drinking one pint a day and no more – none of this ‘getting on it’ malarkey. The study found that women who had between three and seven alcoholic drinks a week were 25% less likely to die young and 35% less likely to contract heart disease compared to lifetime teetotallers. Men who drank between three and fourteen alcoholic drinks a week benefitted by 13% and 21%, respectively.
This is because ingesting this amount of alcohol is beneficial for increasing the amount of good cholesterol within the body, as well as the lining of blood vessels and a reduction in inflammation. However, as you might expect, drinking way more than that makes alcohol dangerous and if you’re a guy who has more than 14 drinks a week then you’re 25% more likely to die young and 67% more likely to get cancer. Wounder.
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The research was conducted by the Shandong University School of Public Health in China, which analysed data from 333,247 people from 1997 to 2009. Study leader Dr Bo Xi said the following:
Our research shows that light-to-moderate drinking might have some protective effects against cardiovascular disease, while heavy drinking can lead to death.
A delicate balance exists between the beneficial and detrimental effects of alcohol consumption, which should be stressed to consumers and patients.
For most older people, the overall benefits of light drinking clearly outweigh possible cancer risk.
Well, at least that’s something I suppose, although I imagine most people reading this enjoy drinking to get wasted, not for the possible health benefits. It’s important to know that they exist though, so there you have it.
It turns out that they might actually work too – check out this woman who lived to the age of 110 who reckons it’s all down to her daily pint. Legend.
