Hello everyone I'm Monica Reinagel and you're listening to episode number 484 of the

Nutrition Diva podcast, welcome.

This week I want to talk about the health benefits and risks of alcohol.

Is it time to rethink our definition of moderate consumption?

For decades, we've been hearing a lot about the health benefits of moderate alcohol

consumption. Now drinking a lot of alcohol is obviously not good for you,

but some analyses show that people who drink a little alcohol seem to live longer and

be healthier than those who don't drink at all.

There are several possible explanations for this.

The correlation between moderate alcohol consumption and longevity might have nothing to do with alcohol.

It could just be that people who drink moderately tend to have healthier diets and lifestyles

than those who don't drink at all.

The higher death rate among te-totallers could simply reflect that people who are in poor health, and therefore more likely to die, are also less likely to drink.

Another possibility is that small amounts of alcohol might have

beneficial effects on the body. For example, alcohol does reduce the tendency of blood to form clots,

and that might reduce the risk of stroke.

Well, as a society, we seem to have latched on to this idea

that small amounts of alcohol are actually beneficial.

And this perception is helped along in no small way by the alcohol industry, which funds research

designed to show that drinking is both safe and beneficial.

Moderate alcohol consumption is often listed as a feature of healthy dietary patterns,

such as the vaunted Mediterranean diet.

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