Why avoid more than 3 drinks...

Today's post: Thursday, 12-4-2008

As an English speaking country, the culture of the United States has been influenced by English culture. And, the culture of the United States has also been influenced by German culture because German immigrants arrived early enough in the history of the United States to influence its culture. This is also true for Irish culture.

English, German, and Irish cultures tend to be positive towards high intakes of alcohol, particularly by men who are socializing away from work or who are celebrating or who are under a lot of stress.

I grew up in this culture and found that in many cases drinking 3 or more drinks did sometimes seem to result in good times. And, I found that two or three drinks worked well as a stress reliever.

However, sometimes more than 3 drinks and quite often more than 5 drinks has unfortunate or even very tragic consequences. Deadly car accidents and unwanted and unplanned pregnancies can result & have from drinking that much in a few hours.

But the cultural message is that this is mostly OK.

I got a very large dose of this while I was growing up & have indulged more than I should have on many occasions.

By making an effort and by being unusually lucky I’ve avoided the very worst consequences of doing so.

However, new research, including some just publicized this week, suggests I may have done my health a good deal more harm than I’ve previously perceived by doing so.

One example is that binge drinking, 5 or more drinks in 2 hours or less by men, or 4 or more by women, increases the amount of plaque build up in the arteries by SEVEN times the normal amount.

Does this create an increased chance for having a stroke or a heart attack?

It likely does for heart attacks because the added plaque and some of its side effects, such as high blood pressure, tend to cause heart attacks; but I’ve not seen a study on it directly.

However, such drinking HAS been shown to cause sharp increases in blood pressure and the risk of strokes.

In addition to that, averaging more than 2 drinks a day each week for men or more than a drink a day for women tends to cause people to get fat. And the death rate for people who drink that much is considerably higher than people who drink less.

When I lost 30 pounds, one of the key strategies I used was to cut out drinking more than 2 drinks a day and to drink 12 or less per week.

I still do that. And to be sure I do so, I literally keep a daily log and total it each week.

I also usually drink a half a glass of wine instead of one or two more if I find I need more stress relief than I get from drinking just one.

And, I’ve also taken to brewing and drinking a cup of Hibiscus blend tea with some Chamomile as a substitute for a second or third glass of wine. It’s not that much of a stress reliever in and of itself. But the activity does give me a substitute activity; and there was research recently reported that drinking herbal tea that’s mostly hibiscus lowers systolic blood pressure. That study found a 10 point reduction! So drinking this tea helps compensate for the reverse effect from the wine. (Hibiscus Blend tea is sold by Peet’s Coffee & Tea, which is where I’ve bought the Hibiscus tea I drink.)

I still have 3 drinks or so on occasion. But I do it a LOT less often than I did. And, unlike before, I virtually never have 4 or more now.

I’d already put these things in place to help keep my blood pressure down to desirable levels and keep from gaining back the fat I lost.

But the recent news makes me quite glad I did. It seems I’ve also slashed my risk of having a disabling stroke and likely further reduced my risk of heart attack, heart failure, erectile dysfunction, peripheral artery disease in my legs, and angina. (Reducing artery plaque and avoiding excessively high blood pressure reduces the risks of getting these. And, avoiding drinking more than 3 drinks a day or 14 a week we now know reduces those.)