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The merits of drinking.
The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada's policy on alcohol consumption for the past quarter century has been:- If you drink, try to stop.
- If you can't stop, you should have at least one day per week when you don't drink anything.
- There are no safe levels of alcohol consumption that we know of.
- If you don't drink, don't start."
That prohibitionist policy has more recently come under fire from experts and the College withdrew it from circulation in 1998. Crafted by a committee of sociologists epidemiologists and professions – that appear to see their jobs as rooting out all evil in the world, the committee had previously ignored an accumulating body of scientific evidence that shows a definite, demonstrable health benefits associated with moderate drinking in people at low risk of developing a drinking problem.
Not only does there exist undeniable proof that two drinks a day for a man and one per day for a woman in some cases reduces the risk of coronary artery disease, reduce the likelihood that a person will develop Alzheimer's disease, osteoporosis, late-onset diabetes and hypertension, studies have also shown that people who drink moderately are less likely to suffer from depression and miss fewer days from work than teetotalers.
Many experts now feel it's time to come clean and to share the science with the public. At a recent annual meeting of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, three doctors presented a resolution in favour of the college publishing the benefits – as well as the risks – of moderate alcohol consumption. After intense debate, the motion passed 10 to 1.
Does drinking actually improve their health? Should non-drinkers start tossing back a few cool ones now and then? Many health professionals are uncomfortable telling people to drink because it's good for their health.
Almost no one says people should drink as much as they can, whenever they can. There are people who should never drink because of a predisposition to addictive behaviour or a pre-existing medical condition that could be made worse by even moderate alcohol consumption.
Studies have shown responsible drinking can reduce heart disease by as much as 50 per cent and ward off Alzhiemer's disease and other forms of dementia (The Lancet January 2002).
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In this is a situation, moderate drinking wouldn't have some trivial benefit, it would be a huge, whacking reduction in mortality and morbidity due to heart disease. It could lead to huge financial savings in health care and huge personal savings from the ravages of heart disease. Still, some groups shudder at the thought of a national medical association making any form of public statement about the potential health benefits of drinking.
In 1993, an international symposium on moderate drinking and health was convened by the Ottawa-based Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and the Toronto Ontario based Addiction Research Foundation
It was the same year 60 Minutes aired its much-talked about "French Paradox" segment, which probed the phenomenon that, despite their high fat diets, the French have a low rate of heart disease. By this point California wineries were lobbying in Washington for the government to allow them to put health claims on their labels.
After weighing some 20 years of research, the international expert group came down hard against endorsing a blanket statement that moderate drinking improves health,
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According to Garlick, even by conservative estimates, 7,000 to 8,000 Canadians die every year from alcohol-related causes, chief among them traffic fatalities. That number doesn’t include the amount of sickness and crime that's associated with alcohol.
The expert group was willing to acknowledge evidence that shows moderate drinking can reduce the risk of heart disease, but the benefit occurred within a very narrow range of the population. Even one glass of wine a day can be dangerous to people with a family history of alcoholism, problems related to diabetes, pregnant women, people with a history of mental illness or a number of other conditions. When you make a general statement on health to the public, it has to be very, very clear and without equivocation, experts warn.
There are so many ifs, ands and buts in this data that the experts concluded the only safe way to go was on a patient-by-patient basis. In Canada, manufacturers are prohibited from making health claims in alcohol advertising. But the Brewers Association of Canada, for one, says it's pleased the debate has reached the medical community. Executive vice-president Howard Collins says old medical opinions don't necessarily reflect what new medical science is showing...
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What the evidence does say is that alcohol, whether beer, wine or liquor, thins the blood, making it less likely to clot. If coronary arteries are narrowed because of plaque buildup on the vessel walls, the blood moves through the arteries too slowly, increasing the risk of a clot. The result: a coronary thrombosis. By making the platelets slippery instead of sticky, alcohol reduces the likelihood that blood will clot in the little coronary artery.
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White wine contains more than other drinks.
WARNING
- Consumption of alcohol may make you think you are whispering when you are not.
- Consumption of alcohol is a major factor in dancing like an idiot.
- Consumption of alcohol may cause you to tell the same boring story over and over again until your friends want to SMASH YOUR HEAD IN.
- Consumption of alcohol may cause you to thay shings like thish.
- Consumption of alcohol may lead you to believe that ex-lovers are really dying for you to telephone them at 4 in the morning.
- Consumption of alcohol may leave you wondering what the hell happened to your pants.
- Consumption of alcohol may make you think you can logically converse with other members of the opposite sex without spitting.
- Consumption of alcohol may make you think you have mystical Kung Fu powers.
- Consumption of alcohol may cause you to roll over in the morning and see something really scary (whose species and or name you can't remember).
- Consumption of alcohol is the leading cause of inexplicable rug burns on the forehead.
- Consumption of alcohol may create the illusion that you are tougher, handsomer and smarter than some really, really big guy named Bubba.
- Consumption of alcohol may lead you to believe you are invisible.
- Consumption of alcohol may actually CAUSE pregnancy.
- Consumption of alcohol may lead you to think people are laughing WITH you.
- Consumption of alcohol may cause an influx in the time-space continuum, whereby small (and sometimes large) gaps of time may seem to literally disappear.
...to alcohol! The cause of, and the solution to all of life's problems.You know the feeling of one too many drinks: slurred speech, spinning room and lurching steps. When you consume alcohol, the body immediately begins breaking it down in the liver. In the process, break-down products called ethyl esters speed the movement of positively charged potassium ions from brain cells through the outer membranes, creating a negative charge within the cells. This impairs calcium channels. The brain and nerve cells rely on calcium to communicate with other cells throughout the body. When calcium concentrations decrease, so does cell communication, resulting in intoxication behavour: sluring speech, decreased cognitive ability, relaxed inhibitions, eventual death...DOH!
Reverse Estimation Based on BAC Level
Calculator is based on work of
Wesley A. Edens for the LawSearch Webpage
