HEALTH & WELLBEING
Keeping the good things good Story by Lori-Ellen Grant.
So often in our vibrant community, alcohol is seen as a necessary encouragement to social interaction. We toast people, events and memories with alcohol, a lubricant for ceremony, feast and celebration. It’s part of many religious traditions and is a source of regular enjoyment for many around the world. Here on the Fleurieu, our thriving economy and culture is closely tied to drinking and eating. To ask questions about how alcohol affects our health therefore brings many views and experiences on how it affects peoples’ lives and livelihoods. We all understand that drinking too much alcohol can be bad for you, yet why has it been a part of our lifestyle for so long? The consumption of fermented drinks is thought to have been a part of human culture for many thousands of years. In Chinese medicine, recipes for medicines made by fermenting herbs into alcohol, or by steeping herbs in wine were first recorded in the second century BCE, although the idea that wine is beneficial to health goes back even further. In modern times, the research on alcohol and health paints a complicated picture. The starting point is the individual – we all respond differently to alcohol depending on our body mass and general state of health. The potential health risks of drinking alcohol could be influenced by individual factors like age, gender, body weight and genetic differences. Your choices and behaviours as well as the environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. Alcohol is absorbed rapidly into the bloodstream and it can affect the brain within five minutes. In small doses, hermetic (from the Greek 32
‘hormaein’ – to set in motion, impel, urge on) substances stimulate and benefit the organism yet as the dose increases, the effect can turn negative. The same can be said for many addictions, be it to your phone, the pokies or kitchener buns. Do you have it or does it have you? Small quantities of alcohol are described in Chinese medicine as harmonising the blood and moving the qi, strengthening the spirit and warding off cold, dispersing worry and dispelling moodiness. It’s considered beneficial for those who suffer from feelings of cold or have poor circulation, which explains why the elderly may have been encouraged to drink a tot of spirit every day. Alcohol also has a long history as a digestive aid, helping those who lack appetite. Because of its heating energy, it can be harmful for those who have internal heat like feelings of heat, thirst or a red face. It’s important to observe ourselves – paying careful attention to how we are affected on the day and in the days after drinking. Research has shown many potential benefits related to alcohol intake including reducing cardiovascular disease, the risk of diabetes, dementia, arthritis, enlarged prostrate, osteoporosis, gallbladder disease, and some cancers. And in our community some look to manage their enthusiasm for the local wine by having a month or two off a year or by not drinking too much in one sitting. Others in the wine industry prefer to aim for quality – quality wine in small amounts. It’s safe to say that alcohol is both a tonic and a toxin. And as with many things, humans find it challenging to know when enough is enough. Understanding one’s own health, genetics and familial response to alcohol can go a long way to deciding how much is enough while being able to enjoy one of the simple pleasures of life and our community. To leave you with a reminder … according to Peter Deadman’s Live Well Live Long, ‘... all good things in life are hard to control and easy to overdo.’
