Wine Drinking Health Problems

Video Transcript

"The health problems of drinking wine. The government, certainly the U.K. government has already stated the...what they consider to be reasonable limits with which to use wine and alcohol. And those, for men, as they have a heavier body mass, range from twenty one units to twenty eight units. A bottle of wine contains, in one eighth of a bottle of wine, there's one unit. So expect between eight and twelve units in a bottle of wine. As you know, in the current conditions, wines have strengths from about eleven percent to twelve percent. When the government takes one unit as being one eighth of a bottle, it means one eighth of a twelve percent alcohol strength bottle. And you know something like a Californian Zinfandel may have anything from sixteen to eighteen percent alcohol. Knowing, of course, the amount of alcohol in the bottle helps you work out the...the number of units you'll be consuming. If you're drinking more than the recommended limits by the government, be aware that you're already in a situation where you're creating adverse effects to your health. The...the one we all know about is the headache after, the hangover after having a bottle of wine or a half a bottle of wine, or a glass. So, this is one of the more minor ones. And often it's avoided by drinking less or drinking water. Other adverse effects for alcohol may be the drunkenness, and one particular one which I have great concern with is operating machinery, or drinking and driving. Those should always be avoided. Those are avoidable negative effects of alcohol, so always drink without driving, or without use of machinery. The other social aspects, as we know, young children on the streets drinking, not knowing how to work with alcohol, are using excess amounts of alcohol and getting into social problems. So that's one area. Alcohol is also addictive, so we know out of a proportion of the population, there's a certain percentage of people who are...can be addictive to alcohol. That doesn't work for everyone. There are people who can drink...large quantities of alcohol without getting addicted to it. So that's another area which is...you should consider carefully in terms of adverse effects of alcohol. We then go to more serious effects. Alcohol can cause a number of different diseases, and a number of different problems in the body. Kidney problems, liver problems is the one we mainly hear about. You've heard of some famous people who've died as a result of liver failure, and problems with drinking a lot of wine, or alcohol, beers, whatever you have. Also, alcohol has...is also a sugar base, so people with diabetes should avoid alcohol in all circumstance. That actually has a big impact. And also those people whose family history is a precursor to...or can....family history that includes diabetes should be aware that this can trigger diabetes, especially as it's a sugar, and sugar's one of the aspects that causes diabetes. So those are some of the aspects in terms of health you should be aware of. Any excessive drinking....there are probably a lot more adverse effects which are not recorded, but any excessive drinking is no good for you, and it's good to keep within the guidelines the government give you. And even those we're not sure whether they are the right limits yet. Maybe the amount of alcohol should be less that the recommended limits, but we have to start somewhere in terms of knowing when it's good for you and it's bad for you. Another aspect regarding the adverse effect of alcohol, or wine in particular, not specifically alcohol, obviously wine, when you make your wine you have additives. Sulfites are a typical example. People can have some allergic reactions to some of these additives. One link has been found between some suffers of asthma and Sulfites. So, if you are at all inclined in this way, your health is inclined in this way, be aware that this can be a trigger to an asthma attack. So be aware. Sulfites and some of the additives in alcohol also have adverse effects on you. So that's what I've got to say about the bad effects of alcohol."