Diet and Alcohol

Facts

Written by Elements4Health

• Many studies show that beer cardiovascular health benefits are associated with moderate beer or wine drinking while other studies show improved insulin sensitivity.
• Hormones may be strongly involved because high alcohol intake has been shown to decrease blood testosterone in men, and also increase cortisol levels, which can lead to visceral fat accumulation.
• With the nature of these longitudinal studies, you have to look at the lifestyle and nature of drinkers in general (or in this study, hard liquor drinkers).
• When you hear that alcohol increases belly fat, you also have to look at what else is going on in the life of the drinker, particularly what the rest of a person’s diet looks like, and how alcohol intake affects appetite and eating habits.
• If you drink in moderation, be aware of the calories in alcohol.
• When you’re on a fat loss program you should have a fairly small “calorie budget” and that means being careful withe amount of calories being “spent.” For example, if a female is on a 1500 calorie per day diet, does she really want to "spend" 500 of those calories – one third of her intake - on a few alcoholic drinks?
• For lifelong weight maintenance and a healthy lifestyle drink, do in moderation and only occasionally.
• Don’t let the “munchies” get control of you during or after you drink (Note to chicken wing and nacho-eating men: The correlation to alcohol and body fat is higher in men in almost all the studies.
• When drinking, watch the fatty foods in particular. A study by Angelo Tremblay back in 1995 suggested that alcohol and a high fat diet are a combination that favors overfeeding.