Drinking Alcohol May Extend Your Life

Adolytsi writes "MSNBC has an interesting article on an Italian study on alcoholism. While the obvious notion of overconsumption of alcohol being detrimental to one's health is supported, apparently drinking it in moderation can actually extend your lifespan. A study on over 1 million drinkers and 94,000 deaths yielded the results: "According to the data, drinking a moderate amount of alcohol — up to four drinks per day in men and two drinks per day in women — reduces the risk of death from any cause by roughly 18 percent, the team reports in the Archives of Internal Medicine. However, "things radically change" when consumption goes beyond these levels, study leader Dr. Augusto Di Castelnuovo, from Catholic University of Campobasso, said in a statement. Men who have more than four drinks per day and women who have more than two drinks per day not only lose the protection that alcohol affords, but they increase their risk of death, the data indicates.""

Things radically change

[MECC (8478)]

FTA: However, "things radically change" when consumption goes beyond these levels

For starters, you wake up in bed with a stranger not knowing how either got there...

Offtopic, but amusing

[by Anonymous Coward]

Once lived in a dorm that was co-ed by door, and was awakened one night by a drunken female staggering in my door and flopping down next to me in bed...She'd gotten off on the wrong floor from the elevator, and had mistaken my room for her room. I don't know who the hell she thought I was...Anyway...Being a chivalrous geek, I just rolled over and went back to sleep...I assumed that she would understand the nature of her mistake upon awakening, and maybe, I don't know, invite me to breakfast or something.

Three hours later I was standing in the hall with no shirt, after being thrown out of my own room by a still-drunk girl who was convinced that I'd sneaked into her room in the night! One of my floormates called campus security (probably for their own amusement), and the whole thing ended up being written up (in garbled form) as a security report in the campus paper.

Not only did I not get breakfast, poor girl was so humiliated by the whole incident that she avoided me until I transferred 18 months later.

I think the moral is either: Don't drink the punch, or Let sleeping geeks lie.

Legal age

[Kelz (611260)]

I still find it interesting that at 18 you're allowed join the military and die but you're not allowed to drink alcohol.

Re:Legal age

[Sciros (986030)]

The military should have its soldiers drink 2-4 drinks per day. Casualties will drop by 18% and morale will rise.

Re:Legal age

[faloi (738831)]

I still find it interesting that at 18 you're allowed join the military and die but you're not allowed to drink alcohol.

To be fair, though, bars around military bases tended to not pay a lot of attention to specific details like age when shown a military ID (at least back when I was in). That doesn't make it any more legal, but at least we could still show up to morning PT drunk. Believe it or not, it's an even worse idea than it sounds.

Re:Legal age

[HappySqurriel (1010623)]

I still find it interesting that at 18 you're allowed join the military and die but you're not allowed to drink alcohol. ... in the United States of America

Anyways, the problem with the age limit on alcohol consumption is that it gives teens/young adults the impression that drinking excessively is a mature thing to do; most people I have met who have drank from a young age tend to see excessive drinking in a completely different light than those who get to drink when they're 18-21.

Re:Legal age

[Lord Kano (13027)]

Where's the ACLU when they could actually be doing something helpful.

There's no reason why 21 should be the drinking age when 18 is the age of majority.

People always spout some bullshit about responsibility, but the studies show that people starting to drink at 21 is more harmful than people drinking earlier. When people are younger, they have more parental supervision. They learn how to drink responsibly. When someone is 21 and out on their own, they have no parents to answer to and can do pretty much what they want.

LK

Re:Legal age

[Lord Kano (13027)]

Federal highway funds are linked to the drinking age. If a state sets their drinking age below 21, they lose millions upon millions of dollars in federal highway funds.

States basically have the choice of discriminating against 18-20 year old adults and going bankrupt.

LK

Re:Legal age

[biocute (936687)]

Well, in certain countries, you're allowed to have (consent) sex at the tender age of 16, but you're not allowed to smoke/drink until you are 18, and not allowed to gamble until 21.

I guess it makes sense too, first you have sex, got (someone) pregnant, then you drink and smoke to numb your pain in making such a stupid mistake, and finally at 21, you resort to gambling to satisfy the needs for cigaratte, alcohol and your kid's school fees.

Re:military & drinking

[by Anonymous Coward]

In the Philippines, bartenders [do not] check the age of American soldiers.

Fair enough. In the Philippines, American soldiers do not check the age of Philippino girls...

Re:Legal age

[creimer (824291)]

Three anonymous cowards went into a bar...

Re:Legal age

[SeaFox (739806)]

Three anonymous cowards went into a bar...

and the bartender said "Whoa, whoa, whoa. You gotta show some id to prove you're 21, and you can't all use the same one!"

Four drinks a day?

[Kelson (129150)]

Is that four drinks every day? Or is that up to four drinks in a given 24-hour period, from time to time? - i.e. four drinks on Saturday night, then several more scattered throughout the week

Because I don't hink I'd consider four drinks every day to be "moderate" drinking.

Re:Four drinks a day?

[Funkcikle (630170)]

Perhaps I am just a lightweight, but if I were drinking four drinks a day I would expect my chances of dying in a variety of ways to decrease, simply due to the fact that I was spending most of my time either singing "Brown Eyed Girl" or hugging people - both known to prolong life, generate vitality and fight discombobulation of the spleen.

Re:Four drinks a day?

[pclminion (145572)]

Shotgunning four drinks one after the other (binging, basically) is one thing. Drinking four drinks over the course of a six hour evening is something else. I'm kind of surprised at the number as well. Wikipedia's page on cirrhosis states that "There is great variability in the amount of alcohol needed to cause cirrhosis (as little as 3-4 drinks a day in some men and 2-3 in some women)." This seems to put 3-4 drinks as a LOWER bound on the danger zone. There may be people (quite a few people in fact) who can tolerate more than that.

Re:Four drinks a day?

[hchaos (683337)]

Because I don't hink I'd consider four drinks every day to be "moderate" drinking.

Yeah, I barely consider four drinks every day to be drinking at all!

Can't drink

[Terminal Saint (668751)]

I wondered if they remembered to take into account people who don't drink because of pre-existing health conditions that result in shorter life spans. That's a variable they tend to forget in these studies...

The things i do

[Programmer_In_Traini (566499)]

The things I do for my health ... *hic*

The old correlation--causation confusion

[Ancient_Hacker (751168)]

Well, that would be *excellent*, I love a glass of wine or three a day. A beer or two on a hot day is just heavenly.

But unfortunately the correlation may not imply causation. i.e. people who live longer drink more, but not vice-versa.

• Maybe really sick people don't drink as much.
• Maybe the people that have four drinks a day have to be quite healthy to keep that up day after day after day.
• Maybe drinking keeps them off the streets, or out of other dangerous places.
• Maybe all the 4-drink-a-day people have died already and were not around for a survey.

Lotsa possible ways to spoil things.

Obligatory Simpsons quote

[antifoidulus (807088)]

Homer: "To alcohol, the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems"

Re:Define "drink"

[farlcow (671869)]

1 pan-galactic gargle blaster

Re:Define "drink"

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (813746)]

They defined a drink as 10 grams of ethanol, which would make the appropriate amount for americans something like 1 tumbler of scotch, I believe (assuming 120 proof). If someone cares to do a more scientific conversion, rather than the half-assed one I just put together, we're looking for what content of scotch contains 30 grams of ethanol.

Re:Define "drink"

[Waffle Iron (339739)]

I didn't see them mention the amount of ethanol per drink in the article, but 10g does match the Italian definition of a standard drink [wikipedia.org], which is also about the amount in a 1-oz shot of 80-proof liquor. Most people in the USA, however, probably think of a single drink as more like the US standard, which is 14g. This corresponds to a 12-oz non-light beer or 5 oz of most wines. So Americans should probably interpret the limit as *3* drinks per day for men.

Re:waste of a study

[crabpeople (720852)]

Wow buddy, you sound streesed. How about a drink?

Re:Makes me happy

[The-Bus (138060)]

You're probably not far off. I know some wines have health benefits, but I'm guessing the biggest benefit from moderate drinking is that the drinker is more relaxed: stress is certainly no friend to health.