Surely you have seen in the media more than once headlines like: "Scientists have proven that a glass of wine a day prolongs life. "This is not worth believing for several reasons.
First, scientists do not "prove" anything. They test hypotheses under certain conditions and draw conclusions that are correct with some probability.
For example, a particular study might test how alcohol is related to the deaths of white European men. Even if as a result it turned out that a glass of wine a day is associated with a higher life expectancy, it is not a fact that this relationship is causal.
Maybe some third factor is "to blame" for everything - for example, the level of income: wealthy European men can afford a daily glass of wine, as well as quality food and good medicine. Or cause and effect are confused: it is not alcohol that improves health, but those who are relatively healthy can drink a little. Finally, in such a study, nothing is known about women, people of other races and nationalities, and there are still many unaccounted for factors. Therefore, there is no way to extend the findings of one study to all people.
The second point is that even if you analyze all the studies, it turns out that there is no connection between small doses of alcohol and better health. There is such a scientific method as meta-analysis - scientists collect all adequate research on a specific topic, summarize them and draw conclusions. In meta-analysis, the errors of individual scientific works are smoothed out, their conclusions are more or less applicable to the life of each of us. So, according to meta-analyzes, there is no difference in the health of people who drink little and those who do not drink at all.
So alcohol in small doses - no more than 10 grams of ethanol per day (about a glass of wine, beer or a glass of vodka) is unlikely to somehow improve your well-being, but it will not worsen much either.
Wait, but alcohol and healthy lifestyle are incompatible!
I will tell you more - modern life is generally not very compatible with a healthy lifestyle. If you live in a city and drive a car, you no longer lead a healthy lifestyle.
In a car, for example, there are so many carcinogens in the air - vodka never dreamed of! Running along a busy highway is more killer than those 20 grams of pure alcohol. And if you also smoke, it doesn't matter what you drink.
This does not mean that you can drink as much as you like, since everything is lost anyway.
"Beer" alcoholism is worse than "vodka" There is no "beer", "vodka", "pynonoir" and other types of alcoholism. There is only one type of it - dependence on ethanol.
For this dependence, it does not matter at all in what form the alcohol will enter the body. Another thing is that over time, the alcoholic's need for ethanol grows. It comes to the point that a person is no longer able to drink so much beer or wine to achieve "condition" - because the size of the stomach is limited. Therefore, most alcoholics eventually switch to vodka - it is ideal for them in terms of price / quality / effect.
Let's just say that switching to vodka is an indicator that addiction has gone far enough. Few people start right away with spirits - usually, at first, "light alcohol" such as beer and wine is used. But just as there are no "light drugs", so there is no "light alcohol" - any drink can cause addiction - and there it is not far from vodka.
If you do drink, then don't mix drinks!
Once again, the body doesn't care which drink it got the ethanol from. The severity of the intoxication (and the subsequent hangover) depends only on how much pure alcohol you drink. Mix, do not mix - if you go overboard, it will be bad in the morning anyway.
There are, of course, nuances - some drinks contain "aggravating" substances, the same methanol. Most often it is found in products, especially home-made, the raw material for which served as fruit-berries, rich in pectin - pears, apples, cherries, to a lesser extent - grapes. Now, if you mix vodka and calvados, then in the morning you will feel the effects of both ethanol and methanol. Roughly the same after cognac with beer - the hangover will simply be more "brightly colored", with "notes" of toxic substances typical for both drinks. So if there is a possibility, it is better not to mix. Just in case.
In the cold, you can warm up by drinking 100 grams
You can't. On the contrary, you can freeze even more, up to death.
Alcohol causes the skin vessels to dilate through which heat is released. If you came into the room from the cold and drank a little, it can help you warm up faster: the blood vessels will expand, but the heat will remain with you, because it is also warm around. But if you drink alcohol on the street, then the heat through the dilated vessels will begin to quickly leave your body - and you will freeze even more.
Because of this "special effect" of alcohol, drunk people freeze to death on the street even at + 20⁰C: the air and ground temperature is lower than body temperature, the body very quickly gives off too much heat and overcooles - to death.
Alcohol is a good sleeping pill
Alcohol actually muffles brain activity, which can make you feel drowsy and fall asleep quickly. But such a dream will most likely be short and unproductive.
The effect of alcohol is similar to that of some sleeping pills. You fall asleep quickly, but sleep phases are disrupted, and you can wake up in the middle of the night - and not fall asleep again until morning.
"Alcoholic" sleep is not physiological, incomplete, it does not bring normal rest. So it is not recommended to use alcoholic drinks as sleeping pills, and generally it is advisable not to drink immediately before bedtime.