Drinking - Is it good for you?

“You don’t have a drink in your hand?”

The question you dread in public. Fine, at least for many people.

Drinking is so synonymous with pleasure that society has now banded together to drive this perception.

It did not happen by chance. Someone carefully crafted the story over years. The story was repeated until we stopped believing that it was possible to have fun without alcohol.

So, is it good for you?

We can always turn to research studies, can’t we? It turns out that many of the studies done were flawed.

How can you determine someone’s drinking habits? Well, you simply ask. We know the answer will vary depending on who is asking.

Yet, that was the tool used to ask people and then compare it to the health outcomes.

The question was asked at a snap shot in time. Perhaps you had just stopped binge drinking and reported a moderate two glasses of wine per week. We would then ignore the fact that last week, you drank a bottle and then some.

What about former drinkers? Well you do not drink now, do you?

Unsurprisingly, the results were all over the place.

But doubts persisted. So then the next best argument is to make one of moderation.

Drink in moderation, and you will be fine.

This line of reasoning was famously converted into something known as the J curve. The J curve, essentially meant that you would be fine if you drank in moderation and alcohol was bad for you only after a point.

Kate Middleton Fillmore, a scientist at the University of California, found that correcting the errors in the data eliminated the J curve.

Sorry, even moderate drinking was not good, she said.

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