Is alcohol bad for you?
Let wine be tempered, little and often, not for meals or on the stomach, said Leonardo da Vinci.
Exaggerating with the intake of alcoholic beverages is notoriously harmful to health and also to a healthy weight ; on the other hand, consuming a couple of glasses of wine or a few beers is rather a venial sin!
However, it is necessary to underline that alcohol is not only not a necessary nutrient for the body, but it carries with it useless calories which risk being decisive in the weight gain of a drinker.
At the moment it has not been possible to identify levels of consumption that do not involve any health risk, but since it is still necessary to define some parameters that allow an assessment of the risk associated with the intake of alcoholic beverages, the Italian guidelines are oriented towards suggesting the consumption daily maximum of two units of alcohol for men and one for women .
Considering that the alcoholic unit corresponds to 12 grams of pure alcohol, it is equivalent to a glass of wine (125 ml at 12°) , or a can of beer (330 ml at 4.5°), an aperitif (80 ml at 38 °) or a small glass of spirits (40 ml at 40°).
Doctor Pietro Senette
Nutritionist and researcher
