How can alcohol affect your physical health?

Answer 1

Unless you have a medical condition that makes drinking alcohol ill advised then 1-2 drinks per day for men and 1 drink per day for women is beneficial (particularly for the heart) and is actually recommended by many medical societies (but not the US gov/ CDC - they just say it is acceptable if done in moderation).

Many people assume that this benefit is due to anti-oxidants in wine and so recommend only wine while looking down on beer and liquor. Studies have shown no difference in benefit between the different types of alcohol and so it is probably the alcohol itself that is beneficial and not other components.

There has been some research showing a beneficial effect of reseveratrol, which is derived from wine. However the extract used was highly concentrated. One would need to drink something like 20 bottles of wine daily to duplicate the amount used. I would not advise that.

Caveats:

You should remember the drink has calories and sugars and so that should be accounted for when building a healthy diet. If adding alcohol containing beverages to your diet you will have to remove something else of equal caloric content or you will gain weight - which is not healthy.

Drinking in young people is associated with increased traumatic deaths and other adverse outcomes.

Binge drinking and otherwise drinking to excess is bad for you for many reasons.

There is no safe level of alcohol consumption for pregnant or lactating women.

There is no completely safe level of alcohol consumption when driving or operating machinery and excessive consumption while doing so is extremely dangerous.