In other words, there’s a good chance that 3 a day could be approaching the “neutral” point where it neither helps nor harms your life expectancy. Of course YMMV, IANAD, etc.
You might wanna cut back on the Schmitt’s Gay.
Got a cite for that?
More recent studies have implied that the benefit from 1-2 drinks a day (for a man) is minimal to nonexistent, while amounts over that 2 drink number are definitively increasingly risky.
Drinking 3 beers every day, even light beer (which in Canada is 4% instead of 5%), would certainly put you at increaed risk of cirrhosis and liver disease. People who drink this quantity are pretty good at (incorrectly) rationalizing that this amount is neutral or harmless or “mild to moderate”. Statistical studies do not tell you your PERSONAL risk, but statistically their is a considerable population risk of liver disease even with this level of alcohol consumption.
Here’s one cite
How does this fit with the historical consumption of alcohol, with everybody and their brother consuming gallons of beer just for the calories? Did they get by ok, or did they all die from other things before the cirrhosis got them?
Most of the studies cited are pre 2000, the most recent seems to be 2003.
Here’s a quote from an article from the Lancet in 2005:
The Lancet, Volume 366, Issue 9501, Pages 1911-1912
R. Jackson, J. Broad, J. Connor, S. Wells
Probably. Getting needed calories along with fluids from beer was probably safer than drinking local contaminated water and suspect meats.
And unless someone is drinking hard for many years, the likelihood of getting cirrhosis, while tmore than en times greater than that of a non-drinking person, is still fairly low for any given drinker.
What is your person/professional definition of drinking hard?
I used to have slightly high cholesterol levels. One of the causes of this particular type of cholesterol being high was high alcohol intake. I’ve reduced my alcohol intake and also increased fish in my diet and my choloesterol has decreased. So that would be another risk from your alcohol consumption.
An average of 5 or more alcoholic drinks a day (35 a week). That’s my professional definition for the average male drinker. Using the standard US definition of 1 alcoholic drink as 12 ounces of beer, or 5 ounces of wine, or 1½ ounces of spirits (hard liquor such as gin or whiskey). Each delivers about 12 to 14 grams of alcohol.
My professional definition for the average female drinker would be about 3 drinks a day, as females on average get higher blood alcohol concentrations from the same amount of alcohol/body weight as men do, in addition to being smaller on average.
An off line medical person I know recently explained to someone that all the antioxident and procardiac benefits touted for a “glass of wine a day” are just as easily obtained with a glass of grape juice. Yet somehow the grape juice is not flying off the shelves of the supermarket.
Tris
I think you are under a strange illusion that bars in the US sell 12 oz beers as a norm…they do not unless purchased by the can or bottle, and if not the usual serving is 6-8 ounces.
Of course, the dimwits in the bars fail to realize this.
remembering the days back in the Philippenes and Japan whem beer was 25 cents a pint…
Cite?
I’ve drank thousands of beers at hundreds of bars all across the country and have never seen a beer glass that small in use (though I own a few at home). Even the wimpy mugs that some bars use are 10-12 ounces, and many use pint glasses.
I’m with Eleusis: Around here, the “small” beer glass is 10 ounces.
Going by the medical opinion expressed in the thread about increased risk of cirrhosis it would seem that the long term effect would be to shorten your life by a few years.
But, hell, that’s way in the future so why worry?
A.R. Cane’s cite above seems to indicate that alcohol itself provides cardiovascular protection, not just the antioxidants and whatnot from grapes.