Surely you have seen headlines in the media more than once such as, "Scientists have proven that one glass of wine a day makes life longer. " This is not credible for several reasons.
First, scientists do not "prove" anything. They test hypotheses under certain conditions and have some likelihood of drawing correct conclusions.
For example, a specific study could test how alcohol is related to the death of white European men. Even if a glass of wine a day has been found to be associated with a longer life expectancy, this relationship is not causal.
Perhaps a third factor is "to blame" for everything - for example income level: wealthy European men can afford a glass of wine, good quality food and good medicine every day. Or cause and effect are confused: it is not alcohol that improves health, but those who are relatively healthy can drink a little. After all, in such a study nothing is known about women, people of other races and nationalities, and there are still many factors that have not been taken into account. Therefore, there is no way toto extend the results of a study to all people.
The second point is that even if you analyze all of the studies, it turns out that there is no link between small doses of alcohol and better health. There is a scientific method like meta-analysis - scientists collect all appropriate research on a given topic, summarize it, and draw conclusions. In the meta-analysis the errors of individual scientific papers are smoothed out, their conclusions are more or less applicable to the life of each of us. According to meta-analyzes, there is no difference in the health of people who drink little and people who do not drink at all.
Therefore, small doses of alcohol - no more than 10 grams of ethanol per day (such as a glass of wine, beer, or vodka) - are unlikely to improve your well-being, but neither will it worsen significantly.
Wait, alcohol and a healthy lifestyle are incompatible!
I'll tell you more - modern life in general is not very compatible with a healthy lifestyle. If you live in a city and drive a car, you no longer lead a healthy lifestyle.
In a car, for example, there are so many carcinogens in the air - vodka never dreamed of them! Walking on a busy freeway is more grueling than that 20 grams of pure alcohol. And if you smoke too, it doesn't matter what you drink.
This does not mean that you can drink as much as you want as it will all be lost anyway.
"Beer" alcoholism is worse than "vodka" There is no such thing as "beer", "vodka", "pynonoir" and other types of alcoholism. There's only one type of it - addiction to ethanol.
For this addiction, it does not matter in what form the alcohol enters the body. Another thing is that as time goes on, the alcoholic's need for ethanol increases. It comes to the point that a person cannot drink enough beer or wine to achieve a "state" - because the size of the stomach is limited. Hence, most alcoholics switch to vodka at some point - it's ideal for them in terms of price / quality / effect.
Let's just say that switching to vodka is an indicator that the addiction has gone far enough. Few people start spirits right away - usually "light alcohol" such as beer and wine are used first. But just as there are no "light drugs", there is no such thing as "light alcohol" - any drink can be addictive - and there it is not far from vodka.
If you drink, don't mix drinks!
Again, the body doesn't care which drink it got the ethanol from. The severity of the poisoning (and the ensuing hangover) only depends on how much pure alcohol you drink. Mix, don't mix - if you go overboard it will be bad in the morning anyway.
There are nuances, of course - some drinks contain "aggravating" substances, the same methanol. Most often it is found in products, especially homemade, the raw material of which served as fruit berries, rich in pectin - pears, apples, cherries, to a lesser extent - grapes. Now if you mix vodka and calvados, you will feel the effects of ethanol and methanol in the morning. About the same after cognac with beer - the hangover will simply be "lighter colored" with "notes" of toxic substances typical of both drinks. So if there is a possibility it is better not to mix. Just in case.
In the cold, you can warm up by drinking 100 grams
You can not. On the contrary, you can freeze even more to the point of death.
Alcohol causes the skin vessels to expand, releasing heat. Having come into the room from the cold and having had a little drink can help you warm up faster: the blood vessels expand, but the heat stays with you as it is warm too. However, if you drink alcohol on the street, the heat quickly leaves your body through the enlarged vessels - and you freeze even more.
Because of this "special effect" of alcohol, drunk people freeze to death on the street even at + 20 ° C: The air and floor temperature is lower than the body temperature, the body very quickly gives off too much heat and overcools - to death.
Alcohol is a good sleeping pill
Alcohol actually dampens brain activity, which can make you feel drowsy and fall asleep quickly. But, most likely, such a dream will be short and unproductive.
The effects of alcohol are similar to those of some sleeping pills. You fall asleep quickly, but the phases of sleep are disturbed and you can wake up in the middle of the night - and only go back to sleep in the morning.
"Alcoholic" sleep is not physiological, incomplete, it does not bring normal rest. It is therefore not recommended to use alcoholic beverages as sleeping pills and, in general, it is advisable not to drink immediately before bedtime.