WE have been drinking alcohol for 7,000 years. Early man discovered brewing by accident. Stranger things have happened, of course. Who first decided to milk a cow?
But ever since the first glass of wine was poured and the first pint of ale quaffed there has been controversy about whether booze is beneficial or a drink of the devil.
Too much alcohol can kill, destroy lives and families and disrupt society. Better to be safe than sorry, say teetotallers. Don’t drink at all.
David Cameron, who probably has a bottle of Bollinger with his curry when he sits down on a Saturday night to watch Britain’s Got Talent, believes a minimum alcohol pricing policy is the way to curb over enthusiasm for cans of cheap lager.
But is alcohol really bad for you? No, say researchers at Illinois University in Chicago. They say that it is actually good for you in moderation.
Most people think alcohol turns brains to mush and thought processes into shouts and guffaws. Sometimes guffives. Or, as one of my chums says: “I’ll be elephants by 9pm. Don’t try talking to me. I won’t be making any sense.”
But scientists say creative thoughts begin to flourish after four units of alcohol – or about two pints of beer. Drinkers are then better at solving brain-teasing quizzes and coming up with imaginative solutions to problems than they are sober.
The key is ‘moderate’ and ‘two pints.’ Many acquaintances of mine are without doubt sharper in wit and repartee after two pints. Unfortunately, doubling or tripling that consumption does not double or triple intelligence or clever conversation. Although I know one chap who begins to talk in tongues.
This is not the first research that suggests alcohol is good for you. In 2000 the Japanese found an ingredient in wine that helps brain activity. Men who drank a certain amount of alcohol a day had an IQ 3.3 points higher than men who didn’t drink at all.
In 2005 in Australia they found that moderate drinking made people better thinkers. That’s something the Four Bruces at the University of Walamaloo have been saying for years.
And two years ago a study in the United States showed that drinkers lived longer than those who abstained. The same year, boffins in Scandinavia found that moderate wine consumption made you brainier.
Which is great news as long as you remember to stop after two pints. Sadly, moderation often seems to go out of the window after the first two.
