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ONE OR TWO DRINKS OF ALCOHOL, NO MORE OR LESS, IS GOOD FOR MOST PEOPLE

For lots of great research posters on many aspects of drinking alcohol - the physiology, the psychology, the policy, the costs and benefits to our lives, campus, and environment - please click here.

FROM LINUS PAULING DIET AND OPTIMAL HEALTH MEETING MAY 18-22, 2005
For those with patience, here are my notes from one of the best professional meetings for M.D. and Ph.D. professionals involved in nutrition professionally. They have not been edited, and are slowly moving on to the appropriate web pages of Nutrition Investigator. Any mistakes are my own, but I have done my best to capture relevant exciting information I learned at this conference.
Alcohol by Dr. Klatsky - EtOH (alcohol) binds to MAPK, signals NFkB, signals a molecule in the cell nucleus, tPA, and causes clot lysis, thus dramatically reducing the risk of heart disease when consumed at the rate of 1-2 ounces per day. However, EtOH increases the risk of breast cancer in obese women who don't have sufficient folate - 600 ng daily is required to prevent greatly increasing the risk of breast cancer.

DRINK ALCOHOL IN MODERATION:http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/80/4/992- This is a study of 1,074 people age 60 to 90 yrs in the Netherlands. Conclusion: Light-to-moderate alcohol intake (1 to 4 drinks per day) is associated with a lower prevalence of vascular brain findings and, in APOE 4 carriers, hippocampal and amygdalar atrophy on MRI.

There are many sides to the alcohol question. On this page a few remarks will highlight critical things to know related to nutrition and alcohol.

1. It is important to start with the downside. Just two cocktails consumed by a pregnant woman may be enough to kills brain cells developing in a fetus in that woman, whether she knows she is pregnant or not. So any woman with even a remote chance of being pregnant should not drink alcohol. Dr. John Olney reported this based on a study done a Washington Univ. in St. Louis. One glass of wine may not be hazardous, but that is not certain, so be safe. Brain damage is likely to last a lifetime.

2. On the plus side, consuming one or two drinks per day is healthier for adults than drinking none, though having three or more drinks is not beneficial. But those having one or two drinks were healthiest, having less heart disease and death in many reports from AJCN. It did not matter whether the alcohol came from wine, beer, or hard liquor. Two drinks of any had the same benefits.

There are details about possible benefits of others, and references will eventually be added for all of these fine points.

3. Red wine is preferable to white wine (see content chart). Though white wine still has the alcohol, shown to be beneficial in 2. above, red wine is full of polyphenols that are great antioxidants similar to vitamins C and E.

3. Any naturally dark liquor is better than light, because natural dark color comes from antioxidants, polyphenols, etc. So dark beer is more healthful than regular beer.

Possible mechanism by which 1 or 2 drinks of alcohol daily prevents heart disease Ramon Estruch et al,
Decreased tumor necrosis factor-induced adhesion of human monocytes to endothelial cells after moderate alcohol consumption
Am J Clin Nutr 2004 80: 225-230

Background: Moderate alcohol consumption protects against ischemic heart disease, possibly through an antiinflammatory effect. However, little is known about the mechanisms by which alcohol may interfere in the development of atherosclerosis. [A drink of gin was 39% less effective than red wine in reducing inflammation and platelet adhesion.] Conclusions: TNF--induced adhesion of monocytes to endothelial cells was virtually abolished after red wine consumption but was only partially reduced after gin consumption. This effect may be due to the down-regulation of adhesion molecules on the monocyte surface.