Anti-Aging Advice: 99 Steps to 100 by Walter M. Bortz, M.D.

Sixty percent of adult Americans drink alcohol, from which they derive seven to ten percent of their calories. Generally speaking, a glass of beer or a mixed drink contains 100 calories. Any effort to control weight must include clear recognition of these calories. True, there is no fat or cholesterol in these calories, but there is almost nothing else of nutritive value either; hence the term, "empty calories."

Drinking too much?
All of you are aware of the dangers of too much alcohol. Physical damage to the liver, heart, and brain accompany prolonged heavy use. Accident rates are clearly alcohol-driven. But the major danger in drinking alcohol is the social disaffection and strained relationships that often accompany it.

Several self-directed questions reflect whether alcohol use is getting in the way of your reaching 100.

1. Do you use alcohol as a way to settle your nerves?
2. Does your behavior change and make you more angry or depressed when you drink?
3. Do you drink at the same time each day?
4. Are you truthful with yourself about your alcohol use?
5. Are you irresponsible after you drink?

Alcoholism
Alcoholism has genetic and behavioral roots. The alcoholic usually has low self-esteem, and his self-control mechanisms are lost. Risk of alcohol abuse increases as you age because tolerance decreases. Disease states and multiple drug interactions pose even further dangers.

Benefits of Moderate Drinking
Another side of the alcohol story concerns the consecutive reports of benefits of moderate alcohol use. The Harvard Health Professional Study of 51,000 persons over an eight-year period has shown a 20 percent decrease in coronary heart disease in those who took one to two drinks per day, and a 40 percent decrease in those who took three to four per day. In 1993 a New England Journal of Medicine article similarly reported that three drinks per day seemed to provide a 50 percent protection against heart attacks. A nurses' study seemed to show similar results as those in men.

Our attention was grabbed by the 60 Minutes report, "The French Paradox," which reported that the French, despite a fat-rich diet, had very low levels of heart disease. This was credited to a heavy consumption of red wine. Whether the benefit is bestowed by a product of grape skin, the alcohol, or something else (such as a different lifestyle) is still open to question. Clearly, however, alcohol has a beneficial effect on good HDL cholesterol levels, and on the clottability of blood.

Bottom line:
Yet these stated benefits cannot stand alone. Alcohol can kill as well as aid. The oracle at Delphi seems to have had it right. Everything in moderation. A little is good, too much is a poison.

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