News & Research

Nutrition Research in the News:

January 2012: 

'Avoid alcohol three days a week, doctors warn'

How useful is this advice?

This snippet was just part of a much larger information gathering exercise by the government to find out what the public knows about drinking and health, and what evidence we have.

• They concluded that we actually need more research to clarify the link between alcohol consumption and health.
• They want government, industry and charities to emphasise the risks associated with both binge drinking and chronic intake.
• They advocate a few non-drinking days per week.

This all makes good sense - after all, we all tolerate alcohol differently, so it is unlikely that "one size fits all" advice can be given. Alcohol is a toxic substance that our bodies need to deal with, and our livers use many nutrients to do so. If we are challenging our bodies in other ways at the same time as drinking (i.e.stress/poor diet/low or high exercise) then we may be less able to recover easily from alcohol intake. Alcohol free days can provide the liver with a chance to re-group so that it can carry on with all the other important tasks it has to do. Resilience is key, we need to provide our bodies with the nutrients it needs to detoxify while managing stress and exercising moderately but regularly.

Contact me for advice on how to balance your nutrient intake.