Green Light For Boozers?

The BBC has reported that research conducted in Spain over the last 10 years suggests three startling conclusions:

- first ... drinking a little alcohol (1 x shot/day) reduces your risk of heart disease by about a third. We've heard that before, haven't we?

- second ... drinking 3-11 shots/day further reduces this risk to around 50%! Go on, seriously?

- and finally ... bad news girls, this only seems to apply to men. We must legislate against that!

The study involved more than 40 000 individuals aged between 29 and 69 and claims to have eliminated factors that previously skewed studies such as these by differentiating, for example, between teetotallers and those who no longer drank because ill health had forced them to quit.

Huh? Relevance? OK, sorry ... I missed taking statistics at school. Sounds like another case of baffling with (horsefeathers)!

It has been postulated (another big word used by scientists) that alcohol consumption actually increases HDL ("good") cholesterol in the blood, which effectively negates, or at least offsets to a degree, the harmful effects of LDL ("bad") cholesterol.

It is also thought that the impact was not material on females because they are thought to metabolise alcohol differently from men. I told you they were different!

And of course spokespeople for various interest groups such as the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine have been quick to say that the results of this research should not be seen as encouragement to drink more.

Of course not. Thank you for pointing that out. Now we know.

Studies in the past that suggest small amounts of alcohol reduce the risk of Coronary Heart Disease (CAD) in men over 40 have been viewed by some optimists as vindication that drinking is a healthful practice.

The overall take-out of the report suggests that as long as drinkers exercise "moderation" by limiting themselves to the requisite daily allowance of units (and taking a break for 2 days a week) then everything will be okay.

Here's my view:

Drinking "in moderation" is seen as absolutely healthful because it is legal ... and it suggests that people are still in control. As long as this culture exists, people will continue to kid themselves that they are not alcoholics.

I don't care what anybody says: if you have to drink 5 days a week, then you have a problem. Of course, you'll say you do so out of choice and that you could take it or leave it.

Of course you can ... you're just bored. Anyway, why should you stop if the authorities say it's cool?

I don't suggest for a minute that people stop drinking completely. But moderation is surely "an occasional light indulgence" rather than a daily ritual with a informal two-day abstinence mandate (that feels like a whole week)?

We all know that alcohol is a cytoplasmic poison that erodes our liver, pancreas and brain. We all know that regular consumption makes us fat because it introduces calories without any nutritional value whatsoever.

We'd all like to drink for the stress-reducing benefits of social lubrication and a good laugh with friends and family. I completely applaud that logic.

But moderation is a pipe dream.

We are living in cloud cuckoo land if we honestly believe that one is only an alcoholic if you repeatedly lose control and get fall-down drunk on a regular and systematic basis.

So all I'm saying is "people ... please, get real about your addictions".

Just because we live in times where daily consumption is deemed both legal and healthful does not make it so.

The real reasons we enjoy drinking so much is that it allows us to let rip and forget our inhibitions. This makes us appear more fun amongst our peers, which in turn is gratifying to us. Sorry creatures that we are.

And when we feel that yearning when we don't drink, that's the siren call of addiction ... our body's physiological mechanism for attempting to reduce the discomfort of withdrawal.

Even if you have the discipline to moderate your consumption to a nightly tipple, eventually you will wake up one day and your body will say "no mas". Eventually your body will get the message.

But let's cross that bridge when we get to it. Maybe it'll be a good time to stop smoking too?