Comments on: Dear Mark: Alcohol

By: Doug K

Doug K — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:15:01 +0000

watching for the decreased tolerance to alcohol is key to keeping it healthy..
when I was racing-fit, I was a cheap date, one beer would put me on my ear
but in the offseason I’d have a beer before dinner, then two, then three, which got alarming.
now have 1-2 glasses of wine, or a single beer on hot summer days. My kids keep me honest on this. I think the stress-relief factor is significant. Running after work is better for stress relief, but usually have kid-sport/music commitments after work these days.

By: Heather

Heather — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 03:52:50 +0000

Thanks JohnSon & Joe, I was a little worried that maybe I really would be the only person here who did… That’s one of my favorite Meatwad lines, too. Also fond of “You wanna take the Meat Bridge? It’s right here.”

You may be right about my tolerance dropping with increased time between drinking. I hadn’t thought about it, but the past year has been a lot busier for us and we have gone quite a bit longer between going to parties. (Usually involves a trip out of state, our town is lame.)

I drink almost exclusively at parties, with maybe a couple shots on a Saturday night at home for the sixth weekend in a row. So I’m getting a much longer time to lose tolerance, and I lost some weight, which probably contributes…

Mike Drew, I’m 27 and still read comic books, nothin’ wrong with that.

By: John La Puma

John La Puma — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:05:35 +0000

C’ent anni!- ‘May you live one hundred years’ … which I believe is possible with a glass or two of wine and a healthy lifestyle.

I usually have a glass of red wine with my meal every night, and local, organic or homemade is usually my glass of choice. Organic wines often have significantly higher levels of polyphenols than non-organic wines.

Wine is also better with a meal that has protein in it, as the protein appears to improve the bioavailability (absorption) of polyphenols. The polyphenol quercetin improves the bioavailability of resveratrol, the touted longevity compound found primarily in grape skin.

And as does all alcohol, wine also raises the HDL (healthy cholesterol)… so cheers to that! Of course with all of this said, it is still important to keep wine in moderation.
Source: “ChefMD’s Big Book of Culinary Medicine”
http://www.chefmd.com/book.php

By: Kevin Burnett

Kevin Burnett — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:53:13 +0000

Hardly ever drink - last time was in March I believe. Used to drink beer quite a bit, but cut that out for various reasons over the years so that now I might have a couple of drinks every few months at most.

I feel that drinking slows me down and my perception that it’s not healthy is so strong that the “mental” damage it does to me far outweighs the physical.

It’s like eating dark chocolate. I would never do that. Ever. I hear about the health benefits, but my perception of candy being bad, and the fact that I never crave it anyway, keeps me from eating it in any amount.

By: Nancy Rose

Nancy Rose — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:11:58 +0000

Mark Levin beat me to the comment I was writing up. Malcom Kendrick, in “The Great Cholesterol Con” makes it clear he believes that moderate alcohol consumption is good because of the calming effects it has on the nervous system, thereby keeping cortisol levels low. He asserts that the cortisol produced by our bodies as a response to stress is a major contributor to the formation of arterial plaques that can eventually lead to heart attacks. The book is an interesting read, I highly recommend it.

By: Mike Drew

Mike Drew — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:48:40 +0000

I’ve only recently developed a taste for wine, so, every now and again, I’ll have a glass or two in the evening.

I much prefer a beer to a glass of wine. Since I live in PA, I’m most often stuck by beer by the case, as it can only be purchased in six packs in bars (which is expensive), and it’s not sold at grocery stores, convenience stores, or gas stations. That means that, when I feel like a beer, I drive to the beer distributor, where they only sell kegs and cases. When I buy a case, I’ll usually have one beer a night when I get home from work. I find that it really helps me to relax. It’s almost like my morning cup of coffee. I just kick back and enjoy a beer while I lounge on my front or back porch, or simply sit on my couch and zone out for a while with a comic book (yes, I’m 26 and still read comic books).

I don’t see the harm in having a beer now and then. It also seems like it must have some sort of place in an evolutionary fitness-type diet, as I’ve seen a can of Bud on more than one occasion in the meal pics on Art’s site.