Alcohol

Well, we finally heard from science. For years we have been assaulted by people claiming that “moderate” uses of alcohol are not harmful and in fact can have some health benefits. I am a chemist. Ethanol is a poison. It is a brother to methanol, or wood alcohol, which most know is deadly. Methanol is a one carbon molecule and ethanol is a two carbon molecule.

Just for a little chemical lesson, biochemistry, actually. Our bodies are very efficient at oxidizing substances. Unfortunately for the “user,” the first product of oxiding methanol is formaldehyde. And that is a deadly poison. As our German friends put it, “Nicht so gut.” Well ethanol is oxidized into acetaldehyde, which is far less poisonous. Propanol, or rubbing alcohol is a three carbon molecule which the body breaks into a two carbon chain, and.... Yep, you got it, a one carbon chain and we are back to formaldehyde as a final product. Hardly anyone has ever died from propanol because it is a powerful emetic. I caused the drinker to vomit, thus eliminating the poison from his body.

End of chemistry lesson. So methanol and propanol are both deadly. We can “get away,” we thought, with imbibing a little ethanol, but it is still a poison. It just has a higher lethal dose than the other two members of that particular chemical homology. (High lethal dose means you have to consume more of it to be poisoned.)

So the arguments of “a little is okay” did not ever convince me, but now the British Medical Journal, “Lancet.” Just in case you doubt, here is a link to a report about the report. Or I guess you can look up the original.
Excerpt:
"The most surprising finding was that even small amounts of alcohol use contribute to health loss globally," said senior study author Emmanuela Gakidou, a professor at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. "We're used to hearing that a drink or two a day is fine. But the evidence is the evidence."

I guess the old saw, “I don’t drink, or snort, or chew, and I don’t go with guys what do,” isn’t such bad advice. Have a good and sober day.