Two beers a day is allowed. However?

Beer does not have a healthy image. Nevertheless, with a beer you get various B vitamins, derived from barley. For example, a glass of beer contains 7 percent of the recommended daily amount of folic acid.

Does a beer belly exist?

A big belly is quickly referred to as a beer belly among beer drinkers. But is that belly really because of the beer?

In 2012, Danish and Dutch researchers listed 47 studies. Their conclusion: there is no relationship between the waist circumference and a consumption of up to fourteen glasses of beer per week. A ‘beer belly’ has therefore not been demonstrated, but those who drink a lot of alcohol do consume a lot of calories. And that applies not only to beer, but also to wine and spirits.

healthy image

Red wine owes its healthy image to substances such as flavonoids and resveratrol. These are antioxidants from grape skins, which may have anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties. They are also said to have a beneficial effect on cardiovascular disease.

Is cheap wine headache wine?

It is often claimed that cheap wine gives you a headache. However, that is not hard to do. However, red wine can trigger headaches in some people. Histamine and sulfite used to be seen as the potential culprits, but today there is more evidence pointing to tannins and flavonoids, which in that case do not only have beneficial effects.

Bubbles: drunk faster?

Champagne, prosecco and cava are sparkling wines made from white wine. The carbon dioxide is usually created during a second fermentation.

A small study shows that alcohol is absorbed faster from champagne with bubbles than from the same champagne without bubbles. Carbon dioxide is thought to stimulate the absorption of alcohol in the gut. However, it is a temporary effect, because after 20 minutes the blood alcohol level was exactly the same. It is therefore not true that you sober up faster after champagne. Ultimately, it is mainly the amount of alcohol that determines how quickly someone gets drunk.

Dry or sweet

Dry and sweet white wines differ not only in taste, but also in the amount of calories they provide. Sweet, white wine contains about 120 kilocalories per glass and dry wine about 40 percent less. This is because sweet wine has more sugars from grapes after fermentation than dry wine.

Is white less healthy than red?

Although red wine contains more flavonoids and resveratrol than white wine, because the grape skins are removed when making white wine, scientists believe that the type of wine does not matter. They attribute the beneficial effects of moderate alcohol consumption (see box) to alcohol itself. So red wine is no healthier than white wine, beer or distilled spirits.

In the mix

Vodka orange juice is a popular cocktail. Vodka has a neutral taste and contains no specific, potentially beneficial substances besides alcohol.

The standards for glasses for alcoholic drinks have been established in such a way that a glass always provides 10 grams of alcohol. A glass of spirits is therefore no more harmful to health than a glass of beer because it contains the same amount of alcohol. Just like wine in a wine glass and a drink in a shot glass.

on the rocks

You wouldn’t expect it, but whiskey contains antioxidants. The most important is ellagic acid, which has an anti-cancer effect in a test tube. However, this has not yet been demonstrated in humans. Good news for lovers of matured whiskey: during maturation, the content of ellagic acid increases.

How much is healthy?

More than 30 years of worldwide scientific research shows that people who drink moderately – two glasses a day for men and one glass for women – live longer. Not only do they live longer than abstainers, but they also live longer than people who consume more alcohol.

nightcap

It is true that someone falls asleep faster with alcohol, but the quality of sleep is clearly less. This is because alcohol suppresses so-called REM sleep. The result: a less deep and restless sleep, from which you wake up earlier.

Why women get tired faster

Women and slim people are more likely to get drunk than men and heavy people. This is because alcohol mainly ends up in the body fluids after absorption. Men and overweight people have more of this, causing alcohol to dilute more in the body. The same amount of alcohol therefore leads to a higher alcohol percentage in the blood in women than in men.