ANTECEDENTS.
 
 
 

1. Health and consumption of beer and alcohol. To return above

The scientific works and the investigations whose aim has been the search of possible relations between the health of the population and the consumption of spirits generally are moderately old. We can thus mention among them:

  • The serious damages that the exaggerated alcohol consumption brings about well are known from old. By that reason, numerous authors have tried to impose a limit of reasonable consumption. Which could be this? Anstie, an English doctor, in 1874, affirmed that a daily consumption of 35 alcohol g did not seem to produce any damage… since then has been known this number as the “limit of Anstie” and numerous present authors agree in continuing recommending alcohol ingestions in agreement with the famous “limit”

  • II the Special report for the Congress of the USA (Alcohol and mortality. R. Room, N. Day. U.S. Government printing office. Washington, D.C. 1974) in which already one affirms that mortality between the moderate drinkers is minor who enters the teetotallers.

  • The works of Marmot, that in its longitudinal study of more than ten years on 1422 men found that the moderate drinkers presented/displayed a mortality inferior that the teetotallers and the great drinkers. Cardiovascular mortality was even greater in the teetotallers and the noncardiovascular one between the great drinkers.

  • The work of wide-awake Hennenkens already the controversy, that extends until now same, when affirming that the beneficial paper of the spirits is independent of the type of drink and that must exclusively, therefore, to the alcohol content proper of the drink.

  • The work of Yano, realized on 7,705 Japanese duante six years, shows that the consumption of up to 60 ml/día of alcohol, mainly if it comes from the beer, has a negative relation with mortality by infarct or cardiovascular pathologies.

  • That is to say: desce for a long time has been well-known the relation between the moderate alcohol consumption and the smaller indices of mortality (inferiors to great drinkers and teetotallers) through all the groups of age and sex (Chafetz).

  • Numerous authors agree in which “the moderate consumption of spirits in the adults can reduce the risk of myocardium infarct and of improving the quality of life of the people majors” (Turner)