Alcohol

Alcohol is not part of any health-promoting diet. Alcohol does provide calories. That's just about the best that can be said for it. Some components of red wine have been touted as heart-friendly. However, a low animal-fat diet is heart-friendlier and not intoxicating.

Clearness of mind and purpose is clouded by alcohol usage, simply put. Observation of alcohol-related behaviors in any environment will support my claim. Mountains of medical research support that hypothesis. A few random studies, usually funded directly or indirectly by alcohol vendors, make claims that drinking alcohol is "good for you".

Why is alcohol usage promoted in any society? Think about it. The obvious answer is great profit for some. In the case of the U.S.S.R., cheap vodka kept down an already depressed and underfed population. Current alcohol use in the U.S. is higher than it has been in decades. Only 13.6% 0f the U.S. population reports infrequent alcohol consumption.

 

From my perspective of daily practice, regularly drinking alcohol has serious deleterious effects. These effects take years to surface for the routine drinker, but they are inevitable. Slowed intellectual response, serious damage to liver, pancreas and kidneys, distention of veins, dulling of normal reflexes. Alcohol diminishes health in small or large increments.

 

I am not a prohibitionist. Trying to impose health on anyone is a waste of time. I know this quite well from my nursing career. I do try to promote health and healthy living in my own life and the lives in my environment. I do not take seriously any claim to a daily practice of health from anyone who regularly drinks alcohol. This is self-delusion.