At the end of the day (no,
I mean that literally), feeling entitled to a brief blurring of the harsh contours
of the world, I usually have a couple of stiff drinks (vodka or whiskey),
followed by wine with dinner. Then a digestif
(whiskey or cognac); and so to bed. It's hardly a bacchanalia, but it meets
with the disapproval of big chunks of the medical profession, who are forever
wagging the nanny finger about having more than one drink, if that, and never
mind the obvious benefits of red wine by the bottle (if you're not driving,
that is). But now along comes yet another study, one I like a lot. It was done
in and around San Sebastian, in the Galicia and Euzkadi (Basque) regions of
northwestern Spain, both well-known arenas of epic boozing. I quote from the Belfast Telegraph.
"The results showed that those who
drank a little – a glass of wine or a bottle of beer every other day – had a 35
per cent lower risk of a heart attack than those who never drank. Moderate
drinkers, consuming up to a couple of glasses of wine a day or a couple of
pints of ordinary bitter, had a 54 per cent lower risk. The surprise was that
heavy drinkers consuming up to a bottle of wine or six pints of ordinary bitter
had a similar 50 per cent reduction in
risk of a heart attack to moderate drinkers. Those drinking at even higher
levels were still half as likely to suffer a heart attack as the teetotallers."
And still in Spain,
but from the other, slightly soberer end, at Granada University, Professor
Manuel Garzon's team of student researchers demonstrated, by dint of running themselves
to exhaustion and dehydration then dividing into water-quaffing and
ale-quaffing groups, that a pint of beer is far better at
rehydrating the body after exercise than water. "[Prof. Garzon],"
states the article in the Daily Mail,
believes the carbon dioxide in beer helps quench the thirst more quickly, while
beer's carbohydrates replace calories lost during physical exertion."
What a relief to know
that I'm not going to say "I'll drink to that," eh? Cheers, anyway.
