New research finds watering down booze is healthier
Posted August 11, 2016 8:12 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO, ON. (NEWS 1130) – You’ve heard about stiffening up your drink but what if your beer or wine came with a lower percentage of alcohol? New research recommends doing just that because it would reduce some of the harmful effects of alcohol.
The study’s lead author says you wouldn’t even notice.
“The experimental evidence is about people who were given lower percentage alcohol in certain situations in an experimental setting, after that they had a much lower blood-alcohol concentration but had felt the same content about their evening, about the party,” says Dr. Jürgen Rehm, Director of the Institute for Mental Health Policy Research at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.
He doubts the industry will put up a fight as there’s already a market push for extremely low or non-alcoholic beverages. “If you look into the experimental and the other literature, I think the most potential is in switching current drinks to lower alcoholic beverage strength drinks.”
Dropping the strength of your drink by a single per cent would likely also reduce a lot of the harmful effects. “Somebody is customarily drinking beer, and instead of drinking beer of 5.5 per cent, he or she would drink beer of 4.5 per cent,” says Rehm.
