Is Alcohol good for us?

[Duke]

I have noticed that alot of users are against the slightest consumption of alcohol even that miniscule amount found in herbal alcohol based extracted tinctures.

Here is what i found after some reading:

Soaking red meat in a wine - or beer - based marinade for six hours drops levels of the alleged carcinogenic compounds from grilling by up to 88%, according to a study from the Univercity of Porto in Portugal.

According to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association that analyzed the life-style factors of nearly 6000 patients, consuming an alcoholic drink or two daily makes you 97% more likely to reach age 85.

[raw-al]

Portugal is a wine and alcohol producing country. So don't grill your red meat and you will reduce it by 100%. That's 13.63% better. 

The AMA does not make any money off of people who are healthy. I would not listen to anything those clowns say. These studies are based on what people say. There is a wide gulf between what people say and do.

Dr. Amen can show you in a brain scan what alcohol consumption (even small amounts) does to people generally.

Depends on what you are asking. If you have minuscule amounts found in herbal tinctures, that means you have a health issue, so if you have a war you pass out guns. But once the war is passed, you make people take a course before you let them have a gun.

Alcohol is a poison, however it is a slow poison, just as I believe. cooked food is a poison.

There are people who make it to great ages who drink and some who never touch the stuff. It is dependant on many other factors.

No doubt people will say "my grandfather used to drink a quart of rotgut and he made it to 130 years".

There are a number of threads on this subject.

[Duke]

Dr. Amen can show you in a brain scan what alcohol consumption (even small amounts) does to people generally.

Okay, so you re saying alcohol even in small amounts is bad for us. Fair enough. What does those brain scans tell / show us in a nutshell?

and those are results based on scientific studies, you can eat almost 10 grilled steaks if you marinate them with beer / wine to have the same negative effects of 1 which is unmarinated. That's how i see it as well. The other half of the cup which is full.

[raw-al]

Amen says that alcohol reduces blood flow to the brain and causes it to atrophy basically. You can see extreme examples of it in autopsies of alcoholics.

When I say small amounts I am referring to small amounts daily.

Mario Andretti says that he will not consume any alcohol for about six days prior to a race. This is because he wants to be banging on all cylinders.

[TylerDurden]

As I recall, the data concerned only a lessening of 2 of the 17 different types of heterocyclic amines, one of the 4 different types of toxins created by cooking. Plus, it wasn't alcohol per se which reduced the levels of toxins - it is already well-known that cooking in moisture reduces the levels of various heat-created toxins. That said, outside the moisture aspect, alcohol is itself a poison, so it's not a good idea to reduce the levels of some types of poisons by adding another, quite different type of poison.

[CitrusHigh]

Anyone have links to studies and or evidence of the longterm effects of alcohol, specifically with regard to eyesight and migraines?

My mama is a functional alcoholic (why do I have so many alchy's in my life when I don't even like to drink? I dunno but must have asked them here for a reason lol!) and I'm trying to spell out the reason why her eyes are going bad, she's getting a tire around the gut, lacks energy, is semi-manic depressive, has anxiety and fairly regular migraines. Any and all info appreciated, studies are great, but prefer mechanisms. For example, we know that sugar feeds yeast which causes candidiasis which leads to other problems like acne, leaky gut, etc. That's a more or less concrete mechanism. I'm looking for the same thing. And maybe that is a bad example since alcohol can help cause and/or exacerbate candidiasis, but you get the idea.

Thanks in advance!

[Chris]

In moderation, I don't believe it bad for us at all. Now everybody is different when it comes to alcohol tolerances, and the effects it may have on your body. Some people just can't have a glass or two. Some are binge drinkers, others are social drinkers. Alcohol can be a very addicting substance to some. But, to others it is enjoyed and savored like a nice big fatty piece of raw meat. Too each his own!

[raw-al]

In moderation, I don't believe it bad for us at all. Now everybody is different when it comes to alcohol tolerances, and the effects it may have on your body. Some people just can't have a glass or two. Some are binge drinkers, others are social drinkers. Alcohol can be a very addicting substance to some. But, to others it is enjoyed and savored like a nice big fatty piece of raw meat. Too each his own!

Believe what you want. Brain scans can't lie. Dr Amen sees it regularly when he does them at his clinic. Drink a little get a little damage, drink a lot and get a lot of damage.

[Chris]

Believe what you want. Brain scans can't lie. Dr Amen sees it regularly when he does them at his clinic. Drink a little get a little damage, drink a lot and get a lot of damage.

I'm not denying the effect alcohol has on the brain when intoxicated. If there is a little damage, to an occasional drink, i'm sure It's so little your not really going to notice long or short term effects. Every culture in the world produces and enjoys alcohol to some degree. My taste for alcohol comes and goes. I don't consume it every day. But, when I do consume it, I usually have a little more than I should. There are other things that are bad for us as well: Grain fed animals, clorinated water, chemicals in our food supply, the quality of the air we breath, ect. I wonder what there effects on our brains are as well?

[Dorothy]

Believe what you want. Brain scans can't lie. Dr Amen sees it regularly when he does them at his clinic. Drink a little get a little damage, drink a lot and get a lot of damage.

I really would like to know more about this. Did Amen do before and after scans with someone drinking a specific number of ounces of wine to see the blood flow impaired or did he just see that alcoholism created brain damage?

[raw-al]

Ya gotta read the books. I would take as much time to answer that as you would to read it. Probably available at the library. I got it in audiobook there.

[Polyvore]

From my research about a shot glass of wine a day is the limit before the benefits begin to get replaced with damages. A shot glass of wine is not much!

[raw-al]

http://www.amenclinics.com/?p=6241&option=com_wordpress&Itemid=204&inf_contact_key=a38e3c862ea3cb36d6518985210e015550fac96e484f81bd9502b48c7584f25b

[Bio-shell Avatar]

it's just like with fructose, a little a day may be ok (though hardly necessary or recommended) but if it gets more the damage will slowly accumulate. some well known doctor (lustig, i believe) called fructose "alcohol without the buzz" because it's metabolized by the liver just like alcohol and does the same damage there. only alcohol can do some damage elsewhere as well, like in the brain.

anyway, one reason why a little bit of alcohol may be beneficial for people consuming a standard diet is that while ethanol is in the body it gets metabolized preferentially over methanol. that way methanol (from canned fruits, fruit juices, tomatoes, black currants, smoked meats and fish, artificial sweeteners, etc.) may be excreted before it can get converted to formaldehyde and start methylating dna and nerve sheaths. that's much worse than the little damage from small amounts of ethanol, hence the benefits for people on unhealthy diets.