Beer Benefits and why med students don't have MDs

Recently the NRS editors have faced some uninvited scrutiny over our favorite extracurricular activity. On the surface, it appears that our local voodoo doctor/med student has expressed genuine concern for our livers, immune system, and general sobriety, but deep down we know that voodoo doctors simply hate fun. Even though we sought out legitimate, professional advice on the healthy number of drinks to have per week, we were told 1) to stop drinking with no explanation and 2) that birth control may cause blood clots, which is clearly the answer to our question. It's no wonder the mystical voodoo doctor needs an extra year to graduate.

In our subsequent confusion and frustration, we stumbled upon quite the relevant gem. It appears that "moderate" alcohol intoxication (which is apparently the amount of vodka equivalent to 2 pints of beer for the average-sized man) led to enhanced results on a "Remote Associates Test," a measure of creative problem solving. The article seems to suggest that imbibing after work/near work does not fully tap into (ha, ha)  the benefits of alcohol consumption--that perhaps we should drink at work too. The general would also like to point out that the study was conducted at a large, public Big Ten institution.

Newly invigorated, we followed the same line of reasoning as with our breast analysis: what additional powers does beer-drinking bestow? You may have heard that drinking red wine is associated with heart health. We thought back to our last Grand Rounds event, when Real MDs confirmed anecdotal association of high HDL levels with patients at the VA who imbibe, which turned out to be the case in the literature as well. An enhanced blood lipid profile can even emerge in one month! Unfortunately, the cardiovascular benefit disappears in "very high drinkers," defined as >= 35 drinks/week. If protecting your heart is a goal, I guess we have some wiggle room. We lack hard data on veterans' beverage preferences, but hypothesized that the increase in HDL levels could not be due to red wine alone. We found the answer in "Alcohol consumption and metabolic syndrome: does the type of beverage matter?" The answer is a resounding no: alcohol consumption (here defined as >7 drinks/week) was associated with lower prevalence of metabolic syndrome in wine drinkers, beer drinkers, spirit drinkers, and even those who like to mix it up. Furthermore, we present the following study on beer consumption and first-line immunity:  After daily alcohol consumption for one month (330 mL/day for women, twice that for men), researchers found increases in the number of white cells and oxidative burst capacity, and "for several of these parameters, the response is more enhanced in women." After being told our entire adult lives that alcohol is worse for women, it's nice to see one victory for us.

We can also discuss the individual plant components in beer and their potential action in a variety of chronic diseases, but we were distracted by a reference to Boston Dandy's least favorite era. To our great astonishment, we discovered that physicians have a history of "prescribing beer, liquor, and other alcoholic beverages to their patients for medicinal uses" going back to the 1920s. Why is this especially astounding? If you recall, each December we gather at Mr. Dandy's invitation to celebrate the constitutional right to imbibe. In the 1920s, this simply was not the case. "Physicians are not bootleggers" chronicles the history of the "Medicinal alcohol movement" and the doctors who fought for the right to prescribe alcohol during Prohibition. Where is this pro-alcohol-for-health spirit (ha, ha) today?

While we choose to overlook the negative effects of alcohol consumption (an analysis better suited for an alternative forum, like my thesis) the voodoo doctors of the world can perhaps wallow in their low-creativity, low-HDL, compromised-immune system lives while the rest of us have a little fun and stay "healthy" too.