“Stay busy, get plenty of exercise, and don’t drink too much. Then again, don’t drink too little.” — Herman “Jackrabbit” Smith-Johannsen (born June 15, 1875 – died January 5, 1987)

We’ve all heard the dangers of drinking too much. And even though cultures around the world tout a nightly glass of vino, or a daily dose of vodka, Americans don’t talk enough about the benefits of alcohol. Beyond the obvious anecdotal advantages – from establishing camaraderie with coworkers at happy hour to taking the edge off of stage fright – there is actual scientific evidence that alcohol is beneficial to the human animal.

The Cure for What Ales You

The healthcare and nutrition community now agrees that a glass or two of red wine as part of a daily diet can help prevent a range of diseases, from strokes and heart attacks to mental illness. But Charles Bamforth, a professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology (and beer expert) at University of California, Davis, says many of these benefits also apply to other types of tipple. “Most scientists globally now are convinced that the active ingredient is alcohol and not some trace component of the grape,” he says. According to a paper he co-authored, moderate beer consumption leads to a lower risk of heart disease, favorably impacts the balance of good and bad cholesterol in the body. Beer also contains a range of antioxidants, B-vitamins, and assimilable silicon (particularly ales), which helps counter osteoporosis (In other words: milk isn’t the only beverage that will help you grow strong bones). It seems that beer, which is more diuretic than water, can even lessen the risk of kidney stones. And several professors of pharmacology from the Loyola University of Chicago Stritch School of Medicine wrote a letter to the New York Times pointing out epidemiological studies that show moderate drinkers have a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s compared to nondrinkers, regardless of what type of alcohol they imbibed.

And it isn’t just long-term diseases that alcohol can help stave off. A 1993 Carnegie Mellon study demonstrated that moderate drinkers of wine, beer, or spirits had an increased resistance to catching colds. In fact, while occasional drinkers were thirty percent less likely to catch colds than teetotalers, those who consumed two to three drinks per day were eighty-five percent less likely to get sick.

But what about the folk wisdom that suggests alcohol can actually cure colds? Many professional singers swear by gargling whiskey to keep their throats smooth and pain free. And grandmothers for generations have suggested soothing cocktails like a Hot Toddy (heated whiskey, honey, lemon, and sometimes water) as home remedies for colds and the flu. It turns out that science hasn’t proven that alcohol can cure illnesses, but most agree that it can make you feel better – at least temporarily. Thomas Gossel, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Ohio Northern University, often gargles with a spoonful of bourbon in a large glass of warm water when he doesn’t feel well. “It’s just enough alcohol to help numb a sore throat,” he says. As for the Hot Toddy, most scientists say that any hot steamy drink will have similar effects on a stuffy nose or congested chest, and that adding alcohol might help you get to sleep faster — therefore relieving your experience of cold symptoms if not the symptoms themselves. There have been claims that certain alcohols are better for particular symptoms — bourbon for congestion, or Irish whiskey for persistent coughs — but those claims are unproven.

Drinkers Digest

Another favorite bit of folk medicine says that alcohol can help with digestion. Bitter alcohols like Aperol, Campari, Underberg, and — San Francisco’s favorite — Fernet Branca, get lots of hype as digestive aids, particularly in South America and in Mediterranean countries like Italy and Greece. But can a shot of Jaeger or a grappa cocktail really help your body break down your dinner? Scientists say yes, but not for the reasons you expect. Many herbalists agree that the activation of bitter taste buds on the tongue can trigger the secretion of gastrin and cue the liver to produce bile, both of which support healthy digestion. But there’s no evidence that bitter booze works any better than non-alcoholic concentrations of bitter herbs like dandelion root or ginger.

However, Bamforth says that alcohol can inhibit the formation of gastric ulcers and gallstones. And an experimental study conducted by the University of Moscow found that a shot of vodka per day can help prevent colon cancer by helping the stomach and colon absorb vital nutrients, minerals, carbs, calories, and proteins into intestinal lining and dispel waste. Even more surprising, a thirteen-year study conducted at the Women’s Hospital in Boston and published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that moderate drinkers were less likely to gain weight and were at a lower risk for obesity than nondrinkers.

Pour One for My Home Remedies

There’s plenty of folk wisdom about non-drinking uses of colorless alcohols. Some hairdressers swear by a Q-Tip dipped in vodka as the best way to remove hair dye from your skin or a bit of vodka added to your shampoo to help curls separate perfectly. Mythbusters took on some of these beliefs, and finally confirmed that vodka can be used as a solvent for removing adhesives — most often used to painlessly remove bandages (particularly from hairy spots). They also found that a spritz of vodka and water helps remove odors like smoke from clothing better than dry cleaning alone, and that a bath of vodka removes foot odor just as well as a water and soap bath.

When it comes to alcohol as an antiseptic, though, folk wisdom is only part right. Historically, alcohol was often used in place of water because of its antiseptic qualities (no pathogens can grow in beer, for example) and because it was more likely to be hygienic than the local water source. In most cases we encounter, though, clean water, rubbing alcohol, or iodine would be better options than liquor. As for drinking beer out of a dirty glass, Bamforth doesn’t recommend it — mostly because it’ll kill the foam.

Truth and Consequences

All in all, it seems encouraging that scientists are starting to examine the uses and benefits of alcohol without bias, proving what moderate drinkers in other cultures have known intuitively for centuries. Unfortunately, though, this doesn’t mean that you get four times as many health benefits from last weekend’s binge drinking session as you would if you’d stuck to two glasses of wine at dinner. In fact, most scientists agree that moderate drinking (usually defined as one drink a day for women and two for men) is better than abstaining, but drinking more than a couple drinks a day is worse that having none at all. What it does mean, though, is that the next time you overdo it on the happy hour specials, you can say with scientific accuracy that you’ve had too much of a good thing.

Salud!