Alcohol and a Long Life?

 

Researchers have conducted a new study using rats, and results show that those bred to prefer alcohol live longer and healthier lives than those that don’t.

Most of us enjoy a drink but know that there are many drawbacks, and we are all becoming more and more aware of the negative impact it can have on our health if we consume too much. However, very little has actually been known about the impact of chronic alcohol consumption on survival rates.

That is until now, as researchers in Finland have bred rats to either prefer alcohol or to avoid it, and the results were astonishing. Rats that were genetically predisposed to avoid alcohol had a death rate three times higher than those that preferred alcohol.

 

There is a catch, though. Rats that prefer alcohol may live longer, but this is true whether or not they actually consume any of it in their diet. Therefore, it could be that the genes that predispose rats to alcohol preference have other qualities that lead to a longer and healthier life. Or perhaps genes that lead to alcohol avoidance are defective in other ways. Either way, it was not the case that rats consuming alcohol lived longer – just that those who had a genetic tendency towards it lived longer, and were healthier.

There has long been some awareness of genetics being at play when it comes to alcohol consumption, as tendency towards alcohol abuse can often be genetic, while some people appear to carry genes that make them unable to tolerate alcohol. More research will certainly be needed, but it’s safe to say that we shouldn’t all begin binge drinking with the idea that we will live longer if we do. What the discovery actually suggests is that having genes that makes us like alcohol is no bad thing.