Another day, another scientific study rocking the world off its axis with claims that you can change your life with one simple life change…
And while you’d usually find us bolting for the nearest Woolworths upon learning that eating dark chocolate can boost our heart health or indulging in that third helping of Camembert may, in fact, upping our health cholesterol content, Science’s latest discovery has us scratching our heads.
Y’see, experts now claim that drinking booze could beat out exercise in terms of ensuring you live a longer, healthier life.
In a 15-year-long study conducted by science-types from the University of California claim that among 1700 study participants aged between 90 and 99, those who drank two glasses of beer or wine a day were 18 per cent less likely to die of a premature death compared to those who didn’t drink.
But hang on a Savvy B-soaked second – hasn’t drinking alcohol been linked to things like hypertension, weight gain and live disease?
Well, according to Dr Dasha Fielder of Sapphire Family Medical Practice in Bondi Junction, that this research is misleading.
“I don’t think that it offers anything additional to what we already know,” she says. “And people who drink in moderation will continue to do so and people who drink excessively will read it and think it’s OK.”
“We have always said that moderate consumption of alcohol, for example two glasses of wine five days a week or one glass of wine five days a week for a woman or for a man, is considered safe and may have some cardiovascular benefits,” she continues.
How much alcohol is an OK amount to consume a day?
According to the Department of Health’s alcohol guidelines, this is what you need to know:
For healthy men and women, drinking no more than two standard drinks on any day reduces your risk of harm from alcohol-related disease or injury over a lifetime.
Drinking no more than four standard drinks on a single occasion reduces the risk of alcohol-related injury arising from that occasion.
**If you would like to know more about the health risks of drinking alcohol excessively (and ways of drinking sensibly), visit www.alcohol.gov.au.
