How unhealthy is daily alcohol?

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lol, I got down voted for my nootropic statement, but if you look at amphetamines and what "nootropics" are, like noopept, in fact all the racetams that use a proline skeleton instead of the basic amine group, or in place of the benzyl ring Or combinations there of . you got your adrafinil, DMAA (recently extinct). But you belittle a drug that you can easily make by adding some yeast to fruit juice from the store. You guys promote these things but a person asks if a glass of wine will hurt their health...........

Of course I think that with a tool like cron-o-meter, you'll do fine. Better than fast food junkies in fact.

Edited by bracconiere, 10 February 2014 - 12:03 AM.

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Yeah well, I guess were all just a bunch of hypocrites here... Alcohol causes more societal problems, and sickens or kills more people than nootropics ever will. Way more. You can improve your life with drugs, you can wreck your life with drugs. I'd like to see people improve their lives, or at least not wreck them. If that means ingesting no chemicals whatsoever, that's fine. If it means the considered use of some chemicals, that's fine too. ("Drugs" == a substance consumed in order to produce a physiological effect. It includes both noots and alcohol.)

Nootropcs don't cause people to rob stores like expensive illegal drugs either, But I've come o trust alcohol for the simplicity of making my own. Unlike Nootropics which can easily go back to the hands of "dope cooks" if the prohibitionists get a whif of them (i.e. DMAA).



Don't get me too wrong, I personaly use both. And don't think that a couple glasses of wine to get to sleep would be that bad for your health. And especially doubt wither it would cause social problems?

This article is rather important, particularly for those considering alcohol in the context of a healthy CRON type diet:

Britton, A., M. G. Marmot, and M. Shipley. "Who benefits most from the cardioprotective properties of alcohol consumption—health freaks or couch potatoes?." Journal of epidemiology and community health 62.10 (2008): 905-908.

Aims: To examine the association between average alcohol intake per week and the incidence of fatal and non-fatal myocardial infarction during 17 years of followup for 9655 men and women without prevalent disease in the general population; and to test whether the level of cardioprotection differs according to subjects’ other health behaviours (healthy, moderately healthy, unhealthy) at entry to the study.
Results: A significant benefit of moderate drinking compared with abstinence or heavy drinking was found among those with poor health behaviours (little exercise, poor diet and smokers). No additional benefit from alcohol was found among those with the healthiest behaviour profile (>3 hours of vigorous exercise per week, daily fruit or vegetable consumption and non-smokers).

My thought is there's a finite total benefit to be achieved with hormetins like exercise or fruit/vegetable intake. Direct health effects of alcohol are superfluous in those who are already have good blood lipids or are activating Nrf2 and other hormetic pathways by other means.

Alcohol also appears to have a J-curve dose response for all cancer mortality. It appears to be working as a hormetin, inducing xenobiotic/antioxidant response and heat shock response transcriptomes.

The most interesting cellular mechanism for me is induction of aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2), which clears both acetaldehyde, the initial metabolite of alcohol, and also other reactive carbonyls (including those resulting from oxidative stress, lipid peroxidation and early glycation products).

Its the acetaldehyde, rather than alcohol, that mediates most harmful effects. There was an interesting study that compared alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) genotypes with alcohol induced breast cancer risk. Those who metabolized alcohol to acetaldehyde quickly were at much higher risk. Heavy drinkers with less active ALDH2 are at much higher risk of stomach cancer. If the acetaldehyde, which forms DNA adducts, is the main carcinogenic agent, then those expressing fast ADH/slow ALDH2 would be a much higher risk from a given alcohol intake than those with slow ADH/fast ALDH2 genotypes. Incidentally, more active forms of ALDH2, which reduce the severity of aversive hangovers and flushing, are strongly associated with alcoholism. Perhaps hangovers offer a useful gauge of how much genetic damage one is doing.

There are other ways of inducing aldehyde dehydrogenase 2. Lipoic acid works, as do other Nrf2 inducers. Probably best to drink your Nrf2-inducing hangover cure (may I suggest rosemary & and turmeric seasoned broccoli sprout puree) before your binge.

Very interesting. I think that might explain why I've never had a hangover in my life. As it happens, I've even actually contemplated how easy it would be to drink indefinitely.

I came up with an idea what if you drink alcohol and when it gets into the blood stream it kind of cleans you by killing bacteria and such? But then it probably also kills good bacteria and alcohol itself takes a toll on the body's resources so it would counteract any good if the amount that gets into the system even does anything, perhaps it is better for just cleaning your esophagus ,intestines and stomach etc? Or water works as well. I would say cold water is better since cold will increase metabolism because your body heats up. 

 

So all in all its bad I would say.

Edited by kurdishfella, 11 December 2020 - 09:44 AM.

I have always thought that one component of the "benefits" that some studies show - when drinking moderate amounts of alcohol - stems from the relaxation factor. People who lead stressful lives or work in strenuous jobs, might benefit from de-stressing - when having a drink or two after work. Stress factors huge into the rate of aging. Maybe alcohol helps a little in that regard.