Surely you've seen headlines in the media more than once like, "Scientists have proven that one glass of wine a day prolongs life. " It's not worth believing for a number of reasons.
First, scientists don't "prove" anything. They test hypotheses under certain conditions and draw correct conclusions with a certain probability.
For example, a specific study could test the relationship between alcohol and the death of white European men. Although it has been shown that a glass of wine per day is associated with a higher life expectancy, it is not a fact that this relationship is causal.
Perhaps a third factor is "to blame" for everything - for example, income level: wealthy European men can afford a daily glass of wine, as well as quality food and good medicine. Or the cause and effect are confused: it is not alcohol that improves health, but those who are relatively healthy can drink a little. Finally, in such a study, nothing is known about women, people of other races and nationalities, and there are still many factors not taken into account. Therefore, there is no way to extend the results of a study to everyone.
The second point is that even if you analyze all the studies, it turns out that there is no connection between small doses of alcohol and better health. There is such a scientific method as meta-analysis - scientists collect all the relevant research on a specific topic, summarize it and draw conclusions. In the meta-analysis, the errors of individual scientific works are smoothed out, their conclusions are more or less applicable to the life of each of us. Thus, according to meta-analyzes, there is no difference in health between people who drink little and those who do not drink at all.
Alcohol in small doses - no more than 10 grams of ethanol per day (about a glass of wine, beer or vodka) is therefore unlikely to improve your well-being in any way. , but that won't make it much worse either.
Wait, but alcohol and a healthy lifestyle are incompatible!
I'll tell you more - modern life is generally not very compatible with a healthy lifestyle. If you live in the city and drive a car, you no longer lead a healthy lifestyle.
In a car, for example, there are so many carcinogens in the air - vodka never dreamed of! Running along a busy highway is deadlier than that 20 grams of pure alcohol. And if you smoke too, it doesn't matter what you drink.
This doesn't mean that you can drink as much as you want, because all is wasted anyway.
"Beer" alcoholism is worse than "vodka" There is no such thing as "beer", "vodka", "pynonoir" and other types of alcoholism. There is only one type of it - ethanol addiction.
For this addiction, it does not matter in what form the alcohol will enter the body. Another thing is that over time the alcoholic's need for ethanol increases. It gets to the point that a person is no longer able to drink as much beer or wine to achieve the "condition" - because the size of the stomach is limited. Therefore, most alcoholics end up switching to vodka - this is great for them in terms of price / quality / effect.
Let's just say the switch to vodka is an indicator that the addiction has gone pretty far. Few people start out with spirits straight away - usually, at first, "light alcohol" such as beer and wine is used. But just as there are no "light drugs", neither is there "light alcohol" - any drink can be addictive - and this is not far from vodka.
If you drink, do not mix the drinks!
Again, the body doesn't care what drink it got the ethanol from. The severity of the poisoning (and subsequent hangover) depends only on how much pure alcohol you drink. Mix, don't mix - if you go too far it will still be bad in the morning.
There are of course nuances - some drinks contain "aggravating" substances, the same methanol. Most often it is found in products, especially homemade, the raw material of which served as fruit-berries, rich in pectin - pears, apples, cherries, to a lesser extent - grapes. Now, if you mix vodka and calvados, in the morning you will feel the effects of ethanol and methanol. Much the same after brandy with beer - the hangover will just be more "brightly colored", with "hints" of toxic substances typical of both drinks. So if there is a possibility, you better not mix it up. In case.
In the cold you can warm up by drinking 100 grams
You can not. On the contrary, you can freeze even more, until death.
Alcohol causes the skin vessels to expand through which heat is released. If you entered the room because of the cold and drank a little, it can help you warm up faster: the blood vessels will dilate, but the heat will stay with you, because it is also hot around. But if you drink alcohol on the street, the heat through the dilated vessels will quickly leave your body - and you will freeze even more.
Due to this "special effect" of alcohol, drunk people freeze to death on the street even at + 20 ° C: the air and ground temperature is lower than body temperature, the body gives off very quicklytoo much heat and cools too much - to death.
Alcohol is a good sleeping pill
Alcohol actually stifles brain activity, which can make you drowsy and fall asleep quickly. But such a dream will most likely be short and unproductive.
The effect of alcohol is similar to that of some sleeping pills. You fall asleep quickly, but sleep phases are disrupted and you may wake up in the middle of the night - and not fall back to sleep until morning.
"Alcoholic" sleep is not physiological, incomplete, it does not provide normal rest. It is therefore not recommended to use alcoholic drinks as sleeping pills, and it is generally advised not to drink immediately before bedtime.