What alcohol does to your body, brain and health [video]
hubermanlab.com
hubermanlab.com
I really love exploring different drinks, mainly beers and spirits although I do still enjoy some wine. There is such a wide array available, it's a wonderful 'hobby'.
With cask beers you get the initial mouthfeel of what I think is the live yeast coupled with some natural carbonation; it's not at all like a gassy fizzy drink more like a gentle tingling over the mouth. Some beers then deliver 10-30 seconds of different malt flavours with some being very biscuity or others more chocolaty. There can then the several waves of hops coming over depending how it's brewed. With one mouthful you get to enjoy and savour all those flavours and textures for a good minute with a lingering taste lasting much longer, they ebb and flow like a roller-coaster.
Spirits and cocktails are the same, the depths of flavours can be absolutely wonderful. A well balanced Negroni for example can be a very complex drink.
I've found some alcohol free drinks than can be built up to be a little interesting, but nothing comes close for the expanse and depth. I presume that the alcohol is volatile and is a key part of driving the other flavours, perhaps in a similar way to salt is a flavour enhancer.
Regarding your comment about removing carbs being the diet we evolved with, I always presumed that we had always eaten fruit and vegetables. Grains didn't become a significant part of our diet though until about 4,000 years ago with the introduction of bronze age agriculture.
There also seems to be what appears fairly solid evidence that animals, including humans, have sought out fermented fruit, about 1-3% alcohol, for millions of years. Wouldn't that be something we evolved on too?
1. ancient fruit was much different than modern fruit, which has been bred over a millennium to be larger, have fewer seeds, more sugar, etc. Ancient fruit would have been small, sour seedy stuff with lots rind compared to what we think of as fruit today.
2. ancient fruit would not only have been extremely seasonal (just a couple of months a year, and only then if you lived in the tropics) but humans would have had to compete with monkeys and parrots and squirrels and insects and scores of other animals to get the fruit -- and the monkeys and parrots would probably have the advantage...
3. the caloric return on eating fruit is not that great -- the alternative back in the ancient days was to kill one of the mega fauna (all of which humans drove to extinction because they hunted so much). One wooly mammoth contains enough calories to feed a large tribe for the better part of a year. In fact, anthropologists have noted that the remains of Home Erectus are universally found in conjunction with mammoth bones -- they apparently lived on nothing but mammoth for a million years.
4. ancient humans lived through ice ages -- they survived through a period roughly 30,000 to 20,000 years ago (Last Glacial Maximum) in which glaciers were a mile deep over what is currently Manhattan. All of Canada was covered in ice -- and yet the Inuit lived there for thousands of years through that ice age -- hundreds of generations. Obviously these people weren't eating any fruit while living on a glacier. Even today there are people groups who live in the far north, such as the Sami, who are almost exclusively carnivorous. In fact there are several know human populations that have been almost entirely carnivorous, such as the Maasai, who live off meat, blood, and milk, and the Comanche, who lived off nothing but Bison.
5. Fruit is almost entirely fiber and carbs, both of which can be entirely removed from the human diet without any negative consequence. I expect that ancient humans were absolute masters of their environments and understood the plant life around them extraordinarily well, but I expect that they lived by the dictum that "animals are food and plants are medicine". They would likely consume plants not for nourishment, but for some other effect.
Once in a blue moon (at special events and such) I will drink an alcoholic beverage again, and while there are some I don't miss (like a Pilsner beer or Vodka) there are others I really do enjoy for their own sake (a particularly aromatic gin, an aged whisky, or an IPA).
The compromise I have is that I allow myself to enjoy these beverages sometimes on rare occasions, but in small quantities. Maybe 4 oz of beer, or 1 oz of liquor. If they were available without the negative health consequences or the intoxication effect, I would very much enjoy tasting them more frequently.
This may be simply due to genetics — maybe you have an under- or overactive neurotransmitter-metabolising enzyme oslt which is temporarily remediated by those drinks in a fashion which produces euphoria — but may also be mediated by diet, medications and even life experiences.
Regarding it tasting like poison, I can't really comment on that other than to say I would think many people have a similar initial reaction to coffee or chilli for example. They bombard the senses and until you attune yourself in to them can be quite overwhelming.
I wish more people talked about how dangerous alcohol truly is. Yes, it can be perfectly fine to drink. However, it also commonly leads to severe outcomes that are often outside of our control, and that harm us even if we don't even drink alcohol.
I was about to ask what harm you thought was caused (not in an argumentative way, just curious) when I remembered driving (among others, but that one is far more obvious). Yeah, duh.
My dad was so good at managing his alcoholism - didn't seem to have any problems with work or dui's, nobody thought they needed to intervene until it was too late. One day he just collapsed at work and was taken to the hospital.
Just yesterday a drunk driver rear ended me while I was stopped at a traffic light in the middle of the day. It was just a light tap on the bumper but the road has a 55 MPh speed limit. What if he hit me going 60? Would I still be alive today?
having said that I am personally going through some changes. and for some reason I observed the past weeks how I don't enjoy drinking alcohol anymore. not because of healthy considerations on a rational level but just the feeling it gives me. the buzz seems to be gone and instead I'm left with an unpleasant drowsiness that lingers for way too long. I have never been an excessive drinker. I'm wondering what caused this change as it seems to be stemming from a more fundamental neurological or physiological level. I got vaccinated this year more than ten times (especially recently) due to upcoming travels and I stopped drinking coffee three months ago. might one of this contribute?
something else to consider. the host of the podcast is affiliated with a nootropic company and advertises its products at the beginning of the clip. nootropics are generally about "take this pill every day and you will feel better". directly related is the idea of "don't do this any more and you'll feel better". I'd keep that in mind consuming the presented arguments.
I don't think this is correct but I think I understand where you're coming from. Looking at the top 10 countries by alcohol consumption for 2019 (below), it seems there's a good mix of wealthy and not so wealthy countries.
Wealthier countries may seem to be bigger drinkers because they often have strong cultural exports (TV/music) and/or a strong tourism industry, exposing their drinking cultures to the outside world.
Top 10 Countries with the Highest Alcohol Consumption in 2019 (in liters of pure alcohol per capita):
Czechia - 14.26 Latvia - 13.19 Moldova - 12.85 Germany - 12.79 Lithuania - 12.78 Ireland - 12.75 Spain - 12.67 Uganda - 12.48 Bulgaria - 12.46 Luxembourg - 12.45
Source https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/alcohol-c...
So, I call BS.
Beer is even considered food in some countries. I don't see any evidence for his theories mentioned in the video.
The United States attempted to ban it during Prohibition. That social experiment lasted 13 years before it was repealed. If you’d like to understand what makes your proposal for a unilateral ban challenging in practice, understanding why Prohibition ultimately reverted to the previous status quo is a good starting point.
Regulation isn’t the answer. It will take centuries of messaging and a shift in consumption patterns before it’s not profitable to commercially produce. Possibly.
If you think that mass availability is an indicator of safety, I have carton of Marlboros to sell you.
>So, I call BS.
You, not others. You, who is but one single data point in a vast sea of data points.
For many of us, one drink leads to more drinks at which point the physiological and psychological changes covered in the linked article become amplified.
There’s a pretty big difference. Most people who drink don’t harm another living being, while those who eat animal products are supporting harm towards animals.
I understand the vegan perspective but not the perspective of the use who criticize causal drinking.
Killing perceived as causing “harm” (or not) is a somewhat non-trivial philosophical question. In an important sense, death is a social construct. From this point of view, the importance of one’s staying alive is measured by the impact on the society (starting with their family). The life of a chicken, therefore, doesn’t matter, with the exception when it is a pet. (At the same time, the life of a hen who is raising a flock of chicks is important.)
I’d expect humans to have more empathy and not try or reason their way into needlessly killing a creature who doesn’t want to die.
"Many" does not mean "all".
I’m sure there are others out there I’m not aware of, but I can’t speak for them.
Also, my motor skills are bad so I literally can't relax, even if I want to. Low dose of alcohol helps my hands and upper torso relax.
It's a very powerful psychological tool for promoting alcohol consumption and suppressing anti-alcohol messaging. It may even make some people continue drinking just to prove that they can "handle it" and are not genetic failures. Or even prevent people from admitting they decided to stop drinking, because someone may conclude that you are therefore genetically flawed (alcoholic).
This particular aspect is probably one of the things I hate most about our culture.
https://talbottcampus.com/crack-statistics/
> And the National Drug Intelligence Center reports, “an estimated 6,222,000 U.S. residents aged 12 and older used crack at least once in their lifetime.” A lot of people have used crack, and a lot of those people do not fit the stereotypes about who uses or why.
There are all kinds of people in this world, and we all live very different lives.
I can agree with that and I certainly don't care what people do with their lives as long as they don't harm others.
However there are people consuming a beer each evening for decades and they are totally fine.. I doubt that is possible with crack.
> If you're looking for people who use crack recreationally
That seems to suggest something more similar to consuming "reasonable amounts" for an extended period. I personally don't know how common that would be (since I don't tend to hang around kitchens in restaurants) but it does sound rather different from "people that used crack at least once in their lifetime".
I don't know any numbers, but I do know there are people who consume crack recreationally and are doing fine. It's hard to compare to alcohol though, since alcohol is much more readily available and easier to get for a large amount of the population.
But crack and especially heroin (fentanyl would go here as well)? That instantly made me lose any belief in credibility of that reply, sadly. Anyone who has seen what those drugs end up doing to literally everyone who starts using them, it's not even close. And that's despite the fact that heavy alcoholism absolutely can churn out some extremely awful scenarios where people turn into monsters.
It's like hearing someone tell you with full-on seriousness that bicycles going at their typical speeds (15-20mph) colliding with pedestrians will cause more physical damage to pedestrians than a pickup truck going at its typical speed (45mph+).
I definitely understand your apprehension to this idea, however, someone I know very intimately is an alcoholic. They've said this phrase to me before and it wasn't clear until they explained their position from their perspective:
There is no other drug that is as socially accepted and harmfully addictive as alcohol. Keep in mind that you can die from alcohol withdrawals and even without dying you might wish you had. The same drug that can do that is stocked on shelves, easily accessible, advertised on TV, and passed out for free at times. Additionally, addiction to alcohol is cyclical. Many people drink out of anxiety, that anxiety is cured while drunk until the person begins to sober up. Then the alcohol fuels more anxiety which continues the cycle.
This phrase isn't meant to discount the experience of other addicts but moreso to express the unique difficulty that alcoholics may experience in the world.
I'll just supply the expected response: "I don't think it's misleading at all. If you just look at the bars they clearly show blah blah blah..."
This is what gets me about alcohol: You can completely avoid drinking it, and yet it causes more harm to others than it does to users.
The negative cost of alcohol use on those who don't even drink it is a real issue that should be more commonly talked about and addressed.
There's nothing you can really do except wait a bad hangover out and let your body repair itself after essentially ingesting poison. Lucozade is another thing we have over here in the UK which is lauded as a 'curer' for hangovers. Apparently your blood sugar drops dramatically after imbibing heavily and glucose drinks bring your blood sugar back up quickly.
That and Solpadeine if you have a bad headache after (Solpadeine contains codeine which is a powerful analgesic).
The hangover is your body telling you you did something not entirely healthy. You might want to listen to it.
But if you must know: Drink water, that night, before going to bed. A good amount. Drink more water the morning after. A lot of your hangover is dehydration. Have a rich breakfast if you can eat it, or electrolytes (pedialyte etc) if you can't stomach the idea of eating.
But also, realize you've overdone it and learn something for the next time.
Does that also apply to people who drive themselves to the limit in sports? For example many people who do marathons or Iron Man events will feel rough and likely have blisters and bruises for several days. Some people doing sports end up in hospital as a direct result.
Should they listen to the pain of their body and not push themselves?
[I'm saying this as Devil's advocate) to raise a point about your logic, not judging the health issues of hangovers vs exhaustion, blisters, and damaged joints etc]
Yes? It's well published science that a half marathon distance reaches the point of negative gains in running. Marathon runners therefore don't continually train at at marathon distances, typical training is in the 10-15k.
More casually, inactive and active recovery are very important to athletes
I don't know, let me think
> Some people doing sports end up in hospital as a direct result.
Oh, wait, I have an answer. I'm going to go with yes.
> I'm saying this as Devil's advocate
The devil has enough lawyers. A different profession might be a good choice.
Kidding aside: If you're actively damaging your body, you should think long and hard why you believe that's a good idea. However you're doing the damaging.
In my younger days I drank heavily and was often in hangover territory the next morning. As I ate during drinking the previous day I normally had an active culture yogurt with the food - eg spicy chicken with a cup of active culture yogurt. I found that it definitely lessened the severity of the hangover.
(From my amateur understanding, the alcohol gets prioritized by your liver which stops dumping glucose.)
This is the only real answer, sounds like you have a good understanding of the situation.
Everything else (heavy breakfast, electrolytes) is distraction and mental-comfort from the real problem (which is the metabolization of poison).
I’d recommend Lucozade Sport instead, for the electrolytes (It’s got what plants crave!).
Then, poached eggs, rashers, toast and some roasted or fried tomatoes. Throw in a chopped up habañero as well for flavour if your spice tolerance is up to it.
1. Don't drink a lot quickly. If you never get to the point that the room starts spinning, then your body can roughly process the alcohol at the rate that you're consuming it. Avoid doing shots and sip cocktails slowly.
2. Sober up before going to bed. If you do get too drunk, spend an hour or two sobering up before going to bed. That will give your body time to process some of the alcohol and tell you what it needs—to pee, drink water, eat, etc. before you go unconscious.
3. Drink a fairly large electrolyte drink like Gatorade before going to bed. Much of the pain of a hangover comes from dehydration and other chemical imbalances from your body processing the alcohol while you sleep.
If you haven't done any of those and woke up with a hangover, it's too late. Your body has used all of its reserves processing the alcohol and you have signed up for pain.
Checks out
Or you could also drink less.
Also, stick to one drink type (beer, wine or hard spirits), avoid liquors and the risk of hangover will be close to 0.
Just in case, drink one or two large glasses of water before going to bed. Reduces the risk even further.
I myself drink some cheap powder electrolytes.
A run. 45-60 minutes usually does the trick for me. I bring an electrolyte drink with me. It sucks, it's painful, by the nideay point I'm usually feeling pretty much normal.
That said, it's been a while since I woke up with a hangover. Having young kids, for me anyway, has been a great deterrent for drinking too much. They (correctly) don't give a shit if you're hungover, they're waking you up early I matter what.
I'm not trying to preach, other than to say that it is possible to break from a habit of drinking and leave it behind, if you've considered that. To be sure, I wasn't ever technically an "alcoholic", just a... normal Wisconsinite LOL. (For a laugh, here's Lewis Black on drinking in Wisconsin https://youtu.be/9m-cQin1qKE )
But I know my limit. I know when I feel like having another "just because" is usually a big "okay enough now"
As I'm getting older I can't drink much anymore. But wine with dinner is almost a daily thing with my partner. One to two glasses only but anymore and I'll feel a bit "off" the next day.
Aldi brand non alcoholic ones are actually ok, and can hit the spot, but wouldn't call them 'good!
And forget about non-alcoholic wine, that shit is awful.
Being buying low alcoholic gin (Beefeater 20%) and whiskey (Ballantines 20%). They are ok. Not perfect, but they have enough 'zing' to make them pleasant.
I've recently tried Lucky Saint Unfiltered Alcohol Free Lager which again is quite good and I think may be available.
Something is seriously wrong with humanity if poisoning ourselves regularly to dissociate with reality remains this popular as a core social component. People will point to all of the supposed "social lubricant" benefits etc... of drinking culture, but I'm not convinced it's anything but a band-aid on some combination of social anxiety and existential dread.
I fully support anyone doing whatever they like with their body, but we should be able to at least acknowledge that any alcohol in any amount is self destructive.
I say this as a former Beer and Whiskey nerd by the way.
I'm a drinker and proud of the contributions I still make to society, but also that I won't hang on for too long past my invitation to stay on this rock. There are people better than me who should occupy it.
... Because the process of making beer consists of boiling the wort!
But if you can boil water to make beer, you can just, well, boil water to drink.
People have known since antiquity how to make water potable.
Also, putting sterilized water into airtight sterilized containers, as normally done with beer, works well. Carry a can of Liquid Death with you instead of a can of Bud, the weight is the same.
"Alcohol - the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."
And while we know that ancient civilisations drank alcohol, we don’t know how widespread or frequent it was, was it just an elite? Was it a very occasional ceremony (as some indigenous tribes still do, using psychoactive substances as part of group rituals once or twice per year)?
But how certain are you that most of the problems that we struggle with today aren't a result of insufficient ritual sacrifice? Maybe we need to heed the lesson taught to us by the movie Cabin in the Woods.
So if you're going to be a moron, then you can claim that the Bible teaches that the world was created in six days 6,000 years ago, with the light from distant stars already in transit.
Maybe humanity is not that hopeless.
So maybe organized, community-oriented religion is the right suggestion? Or some secular organization devoted to community betterment?
If you aren't already in such dire straits as to require this kind of help, it really seems like a form of self-harm to me. I've met many people who've gone through 12 steps. Some advocate for it, some protest it. I'm genuinely happy for people to get the help they need wherever they can find it. But I absolutely would not recommend it to someone that isn't already so desperate that they're willing to give up their autonomy because they don't know what else to do.
I suggest studying epistemology
Society believes alcohol changes personality, and that drunk people are less themselves. Thus, they judge drunk people less harshly (including themselves).
But alcohol doesn't actually change personality. It only makes your brain work slower. It doesn't make it go anywhere it otherwise wouldn't, you just get there later.
What we've developed is a way to split up when we're accountable. I promise you that split is zero-sum: the more leniently they judge your social behaviour when drunk, the more harshly they judge it when you're sober.
It's an example of bad high-status science suppressing good low-status science. Neurochemists asking, "Why does alcohol make us do this?" without checking with cultural anthropologists if it actually does make us do this, or if it just makes "WEIRD" people do it.
I did not say it was all in your head, by the way. The lower reaction times and slower thinking is obviously real (and present everywhere).
I don't think any study really proved that a glass of beer a month would do anything to your life expectancy no?
For populations between 15–39 years old, the theoretical minimum risk capped at 0.603 standard drinks per day.
So a "safe" amount of alcohol for the majority drinking population is less than one standard drink per day
For populations over 40 years old, the theoretical minimum risk is capped at 1.87 drinks per day
There's no rollover. If you don't drink during the week, that doesn't mean you get five drinks on the weekend. Each day is independent.
Good luck with these calculations if you’re using imperial units. And you’re tipsy. But for metric countries it’s not too hard a calculation.
"This study had various limitations that should be taken into account when interpreting the findings. First, we did not incorporate patterns of drinking, and therefore did not distinguish between individuals who infrequently engage in heavy episodic drinking and those who consume the same amount of alcohol over several days."
From what I'm reading it seems like the study was looking at habitual drinker, either drinking regularly or in big amount.
Yes. There is a related issue, which is that a lot of people just can't accept that something they like is actually detrimental. Since I've never drank, I never experienced this specific kind of cognitive dissonance (if you can even call it that), but I've seen in so many people, it's depressing. There are some things that I love despite knowing that they are bad for your health (like certain unhealhty foods), but I would hate to deceive myself about it (knowing that they are bad allows me to manage the risks, like being aware that I should reduce consumption if I'm indulging too much). But a lot of people have the exact opposite attitude. Which is curious, because the damages are some times very obvious.
Many games do, though.
However what you describe - effectively novelty seeking, which is very human - is a far cry from the chronic alcohol culture that permeates society.
The former is healthy exploration, what we have however is chronic dissociation.
I hope in the future biochemical augmentation will be just as accepted as electromechanical.
I'm not sure that electromechanical modification is accepted today. Things like limb replacements are now accepted for those with injuries - but I don't think there is widespread acceptance of mechanical augmentation for _enhancement_. There is a grey area though for tool usage which is acceptable and what is "augmentation".
edit: for the non-Californians, this is a reference to proposition 65. https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/06/07/opinion-californias-j...
Everything in moderation including moderation, as the saying goes.
Yup, this seems quite accurate to me. Hence the desire to regularly dissociate.
That is really interesting.
So, what do you do now instead of Beer and Whiskey?
Edit: Don't tell me it's karma.
I was recently at a very small but upscale restaurant and they had a no-alcohol dinner flight pairing that was fantastic.
There is so much variety and no downsides!
And caffeine from coffee/tea while fine in moderation, becomes really bad if abused as part of a pattern of chronic sleep deprivation which is really common.
I have probably had a sum total of 10 mocktails in my life - each of which has less caffeine and sugar than a half can of coca-cola
I was just being a pedantic jerk reacting to: "no downsides."
There are often possible downsides to anything one can do ... but that doesn't mean it isn't something worth doing. I love to hike - I could break my ankle or fall of cliff - but that doesn't mean I should never hike.
Might still have a glass of bubbly in celebration of something or enjoy the occasional wine tour at a vineyard, but I have no real intent to continue drinking regularly. The health tradeoffs aren't worth it to me.
Note also that unfortunately it seems women are much more sensitive to the risks of alcohol than men. I'm not a big fan of this "mommy needs her wine" culture we have.
It is in our nature to disassociate with reality/consciousness imo, for many of us it's too much to handle.
There are much better alternatives out there and I wish they weren't so demonized.
Is driving in any amount self-destructive? Eating bacon? If we're going to call mildly (or moderately) unhealthy things "self-destructive", what term should we use for... well, truly self-destructive things?
Incas drank alcohol regularly and I doubt they were stressed for their 9 to 5 job.
Yes something is deeply wrong with human nature, and human existence is largely suffering no matter how you try to mask it.
I agree that it's a bandaid but what solution are you proposing? There is of course the option to simply exit the game, but for various biological reasons this is a real challenge.
Poisoning ourselves regularly and feeling good doing it sounds like a reasonable compromise.
If it's not alcohol it's drugs, if it's not drugs it's gambling. If it's not gambling it's approaching women at the bar. If it's not approaching women at the bar it's speeding.
People have a deep need to do something that entails risk or that it's frowned upon (or both).
Cultures where this doesn't happen such as Japan are essentially dying and going extinct and so is Europe and US aelbit at a slower rate. Will rightfully get replaced by cultures who DGAF and have a high turnover rate such as the Arab world, Indians and Sub-Saharan Africa
We don't always (want to) make optimal decisions based only on how objectively healthy they are, and that's perfectly fine, and not really "self-destructive" in the sense you're implying. There's an adage somewhere about living health and becoming a beautiful, healthy corpse some day.
Alcohol is bad. Maybe cutting it entirely from your life will get you an average 0.56% increased life span. Will it be worth it?
This isn't to say being a drunkard is good, or that widespread alcohol consumption can't be a problem (see Russia's and native Americans' history).
Moderate alcohol consumption may provide some health benefits, such as:
- Reducing your risk of developing and dying of heart disease
- Possibly reducing your risk of ischemic stroke (when the arteries to your brain become narrowed or blocked, causing severely reduced blood flow)
- Possibly reducing your risk of diabetes
Define "healthy". Breathing toxic fumes on the roadways isn't healthy, and yet most of us prefer to live near civilization. You can't exclude one side of a tradeoff, you have to measure them against each other.