Seniors Matter(s): My whisky's on the rocks!

What a great double entendre.

I like my whisky on the rocks too but recent research has me wondering if my relationship with it is REALLY on the rocks.

Forever, the health benefits of moderate drinking have been widely shared. To those who think everything enjoyable must be bad for you, this news might seem like a dream come true.

Studies show that health benefits come only with moderate drinking and are greatest for older men.

Dr. Kenneth Mukamal, an internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston, was the lead author of a New England Journal of Medicine study examining the roles of drinking patterns and heart disease that found, after 12s year of follow-up, men who consumed alcohol between three and seven days per week had fewer heart attacks than men who drank once a week.

A lot of the benefits of alcohol are on the blood vessels and on blockages in the arteries to the heart and to the brain. This might be related to alcohol’s effect on the good cholesterol, the HDL cholesterol.

In fact, alcohol affects HDL levels just about as strongly as any other lifestyle factor. People also think that alcohol may lower heart attack risk by acting as a blood thinner.

A wide variety of health effects has been attributed to moderate drinking. A lower risk of diabetes has been seen in women and men.

We don’t think moderate drinking necessarily clouds our judgment, it turns out that it probably does. In simulated driving tests that were done as far back as the 1950s, people have realized that at very low blood-alcohol levels, simulated driving performance is impaired. When I say low blood-alcohol, what I’m talking about is as low as 0.02 per cent.

That’s why it is recommended that even moderate drinking occur in the home, preferably tied to meals, not so much because we find that that drinking with a meal is more likely to lower heart disease risk, for example, but because it’s the safest way to prevent high blood-alcohol levels that can get people into accidents.

It’s hard to give any single piece of advice because of all the things we’ve learned about moderate drinking. The potential risks and benefits are going to vary by a person’s health history, age, sex, and family history.

For people who are drinking moderately and are able to control it and don’t have any of the absolute reasons why they shouldn’t be drinking alcohol, there is no evidence now that that’s a bad thing to do.

There is also evidence that moderate drinking may prevent silent strokes or other subtle types of brain injury that we know, over time, can predispose to dementia. I think it’s still an area where we need some more investigation.

The key word is MODERATION, meaning two drinks/day or less for men, and one drink/day for women according to social media. This resembles the sage advice about road speeds being set at 80 km/hr. Some people adhere to that measure, but most don’t.

A dentist friend of mine once explained that the goal of brushing twice a day for two minutes was a great, but unrealistic, goal. Is it the same for alcohol? We have all learned that excess of anything is detrimental, yet some of us choose tight numbers while others push the speed limit to 99 km/hr since the OPP sets its radar at100 km/h; therefore, allowing a reasonable variance. When the speed limit is 100, I note 120 is the norm. Is it the same with alcohol?

Like a driving speed, I have learned that alcohol has a double-edged sword that ranges from being safe and medicinal to corrosive.

It is clearly an assault on our body. There is a plethora of research and opinions about consumption. Alcohol can severely affect cognitive thinking as shown by numerous studies. Dance floors are filled with empowered people at midnight because Tequila told them so.

For many years, the OPP considered 0.08 milligrams (mg) as a benchmark and then lowered the reasonable level for safe, conscientious driving to 0.05 mg because it found that 0.08 people were NOT able to operate a vehicle with reasonable safety. I’d like to think that all motorists I pass on a snowy January night have read and adhered to those guidelines.

I have learned that 30 seconds after your first sip, alcohol races into your brain. It slows down the chemicals and pathways that your brain cells use to send messages. That alters your mood, slows your reflexes, and throws off your balance. You also can’t think straight, which you may not recall later, because you’ll struggle to store things in long-term memory.

I have also learned that if you drink heavily for a long time, booze can affect how your brain looks and works. Its cells start to change and even get smaller. Too much alcohol can actually shrink your brain. And that’ll have big effects on your ability to think, learn, and remember things. It can also make it harder to keep a steady body temperature and control your movements. The research and data on these effects is definitive.

Alcohol’s slow-down effect on your brain can make you drowsy, so you may doze off more easily. But you won’t sleep well. Your body processes alcohol throughout the night. Once the effects wear off, it leaves you tossing and turning. You don’t get that good REM sleep your body needs to feel restored, and you’re more likely to have nightmares and vivid dreams. You’ll also probably wake up more often for trips to the bathroom.

Alcohol also irritates the lining of your stomach and makes your digestive juices flow. When enough acid and alcohol build up, you get nauseated, and you may throw up. Years of heavy drinking can cause painful sores called ulcers in your stomach. And high levels of stomach juices mean you won’t feel hungry. That’s one reason long-term drinkers often don’t get all the nutrients they need.

Your small intestine and colon get irritated, too. Alcohol throws off the normal speed that food moves through them. That’s why hard drinking can lead to diarrhea, which can turn into a long-term problem. It also makes heartburn more likely – it relaxes the muscle that keeps acid out of your esophagus, the tube that connects your mouth and stomach.

Your brain gives off a hormone that keeps your kidneys from making too much urine. But when alcohol swings into action, it tells your brain to hold off. That means you have to go more often, which can leave you dehydrated. When you drink heavily for years, that extra workload and the toxic effects of alcohol can wear your kidneys down.

Your liver breaks down almost all the alcohol you drink. In the process, it handles a lot of toxins. Over time, heavy drinking makes the organ fatty, and lets thicker, fibrous tissue build up. That limits blood flow, so liver cells don’t get what they need to survive. As they die off, the liver gets scars and stops working as well, a disease called cirrhosis.

Alcohol widens your blood vessels, making more blood flow to your skin. That makes you blush and feel warm and toasty. But not for long. The heat from that extra blood passes right out of your body, causing your temperature to drop. On the other hand, long-term, heavy drinking boosts your blood pressure. It makes your body release stress hormones that narrow blood vessels, so your heart has to pump harder to push blood through.

You might not link a cold with a night of drinking, but there might be a connection. Alcohol puts the brakes on your immune system. Your body can’t make the number of white blood cells it needs to fight germs. So for 24 hours after drinking, you’re more likely to get sick. Long-term, heavy drinkers are much more likely to get illnesses, such as pneumonia and tuberculosis.

These powerful chemicals manage everything from your sex drive to how fast you digest food. To keep it all going smoothly, you need them in the right balance. But alcohol throws them out of whack. In women, that can knock your periods off cycle and cause problems getting pregnant. In men, it can mean trouble getting an erection, a lower sperm count, shrinking testicles, and breast growth.

Alcohol impacts your hearing, but no one’s sure exactly how. It could be that it messes with the part of your brain that processes sound. Or it might damage the nerves and tiny hairs in your inner ear that help you hear. However it happens, drinking means you need a sound to be louder so you can hear it. And that can become permanent. Long-term drinkers often have hearing loss.

Heavy drinking can throw off your calcium levels. Along with the hormone changes that alcohol triggers, this can keep your body from building new bone. Your bones get thinner and more fragile, a condition called osteoporosis. Alcohol also limits blood flow to your muscles and gets in the way of the proteins that build them up. Over time, you’ll have lower muscle mass and less strength.

I have learned that seniors have a series of long easy days, with oodles of free time. Drinking can often take up too much of that.

A couple of sips per day can grow into five or more over the course of a day. This highly exceeds the level necessary to explain healthy use.

I intend to work at maintaining a moderate level.

If it is to be, it is up to me.

‘Till next time!