Alcohol Study

Rachel Walla

I got a notice in the mail this week from the water company that contained a warning about haloacetic acid being over the recommended rate for drinking water in town. It suggested not to drink Butte water if you are pregnant, have a severely compromised immune system, etc.
etc. Oddly enough, that very same day I read two online articles releasing the results of a recent study conducted at the University of Texas concluding that booze may prolong your life. Maybe Butte residents have had it right all along.

Like almost all American children, I was taught in school that alcohol is bad. It makes you uncoordinated, unattractive and uninhibited. Then, the next morning, you recollect, regret and regurgitate. If you would have told me Saturday morning that alcohol was good for you, I would have hit you in the face and thrown up on your shoes.

Amazingly enough however, this study showed that daily, DAILY drinking somehow, miraculously decreases your risks for heart disease(America’s No.1 cause of death) and diabetes. No one can explain these results. On average, those who drank two alcoholic beverages a day increased their HDL (good cholesterol) anywhere from 5-10%. It also improves insulin sensitivity which lowers your risk for diabetes.

Despite arguments that these studies weren’t properly conducted and included shoddy methodologies, similar studies have been done throughout the past couple of centuries that include similar results. The key is, that the people in the studies drank in moderation. That is the tricky part of it. The study didn’t measure the health effects of college-aged binge drinkers, it measured the effects of alcohol on those who drink about two alcoholic beverages a day. Drinking in moderation like this is said to be better than both binge drinking and staying away from alcohol altogether.

For those of you concerned with the health qualities of your beverage of choice, it was long believed that those who chose wine were healthier but new studies show it’s not the wine itself that produces this outcome. A review of grocery receipts from wine vs. beer drinkers revealed that wine drinkers are more likely to buy fruits and vegetables while beer drinkers buy butter, chips, and frozen pizzas.

In conclusion, when the water isn’t good, try the beer. Or the wine, just don’t sample the whole bar and you’ll be doing good.