If you always enjoy that small sip of wine, or find great pleasure in a refreshing glass of Pilsner beer, you can now breathe a sigh of relief and allow yourself to have one right away. Because after decades of fierce battle against the number one enemy of health—the devilish drink—doctors and nutrition experts now have to grit their teeth and admit that they were completely wrong on a key point: contrary to all speculation, alcohol can actually increase human life span.
It is estimated that no other thing has been subjected to such scrutiny and criticism merely for being suspected as a health hazard as alcohol has. More than 100 scientific studies conducted over the past 30 years have shown that, on average, people who drink moderately and regularly are healthier and live longer than those who abstain completely. The most famous example is the MONICA study project conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Augsburg, Germany. The researchers found that for male participants, their estimated life span (the average calculated by probability statistics) reached its peak when they consistently consumed 20 to 40 grams of alcohol daily, which is roughly equivalent to half a bottle of wine or a liter of beer. Therefore, even drinking this much daily is still within a reasonable range. For women, the required alcohol intake is half that of men.
Only when daily alcohol consumption exceeds 80 grams is it necessary to exercise restraint—after all, that's equivalent to a whole bottle of wine. It's not hard to understand why experts were so surprised by this conclusion and, for the first time, began to doubt themselves. Of course, no one would be pleased to be accused of being an instigator for alcoholics, especially since the alcohol intake considered necessary for health in this study has long been identified by many addiction specialists as a clear sign of addiction.
However, the positive effects of alcohol have been confirmed. In fact, many completed studies were quite prescient, meaning that although scientific experiments have been coaxing participants for years to recall what the most significant causes of life-threatening crises were in their consumption behavior over the past few years, scientists have never been able to find anything. Even if increased alcohol consumption does lead to a rise in liver disease, it doesn't prove that alcohol is the main culprit for harming health. This is because at the same time, several other common diseases—first and foremost, heart attacks and strokes—have decreased significantly. The positive effects of moderate drinking outweigh the side effects.
The reason such a conclusion is hard to accept is probably just because many experts didn't expect that alcohol works through certain biochemical pathways. Therefore, research over the past few decades has only been frantically pursuing the possibility of alcohol being harmful to health. Ironically, without alcohol, it would be almost impossible to practice natural therapies. There would be no phytotherapy without alcohol; only alcohol can better enable the active ingredients in herbs to be absorbed and utilized by the body's tissues. Because alcohol has a protective function, it can make the secondary medicinal parts of plants, which are not easily absorbed by the human body, biologically active. However, the benefits of alcohol can only be realized when it is consumed regularly and in moderation—a glass of table wine or a glass of beer is enough! Binge drinking is definitely not okay, even if it is "regular" and "measured."
There is no disputing that alcoholism or the abuse of alcoholic beverages causes harm to health that cannot be ignored or underestimated. However, what is currently missing in the public discourse on alcohol is an attitude of accepting factual data without prejudice. Undoubtedly, alcohol is like the two-faced god in Roman mythology who guards the gate—one side tempts people to become addicted and drink excessively, thereby harming health; the other side can promote health and prolong life. What is good for you can also be harming you, and vice versa. This is clearly the case for alcohol. Similarly, it applies to many other foods. Therefore, despite alcohol's undeniable benefits, we should not force people who don't like alcohol to drink it, because it has not yet been proven whether abstainers would benefit from alcohol.