Alcohol
A product that has been used by many civilizations over the ages in many different products and many different religious ceremonies, nobody really knows who was the First to drink alcohol but we can probably guess this was over ten thousand years ago, archeological evidence suggest that fermented beverages existed at least as early as the Neolithic age (10 000 B.C.) wine has been known as early as Egyptian times of around 4.000 B.C. so we can safely say Alcohol has been consumed in some manner for most of our civilized history and may be a older then even bread.
Alcohol in general tends to have a lot of effects to the health of a person, depending on how much or how little this person drinks it in his daily life these are some(but not all) of the effects a person can expect when consuming alcohol including of course changes in HDL cholesterol.Potential long term effects of consuming alcohol :
Minor Consumption
Increased Insulin sensititivity
Lower risk of Diabetes
Reduced number of silent brain Infarcts
Increased HDL-cholesterol
Decreases thrombosis
Reduced fibrinogen
Increase fibrinolysis
Increased coronary blood flow
Reduced risk of gallstones
Reduced risk of kidney stones
Large Consumption
Cancer
Anemia
Hepatitis
Increased Risk of diabetes
Depression
Psychosis
Sleep Disorder
Liver cirrhosis
Anxiety
Chronic gastritis
As you can see moderate consumption has some potential benefits but one should always be careful to not cross that tress hold into a alcohol addiction, a few glasses a day/week is plenty to achieve some of the potential benefits while a few bottles will give you serious issues over time.
Here is a study that shows some interesting effects on HDL cholesterol when consuming moderate amounts of alcohol.
Moderate Alcohol intake reduced bile cholesterol saturation and raises HDL cholesterol
This study published by the University of Bristol department of Medicine in 1983 shows the effect of alcohol on blood HDL cholesterol and bile cholesterol saturation in 12healthy volunteers.
The 12 volunteers where people with a very low alcohol intake and where given 39grams of alcohol a day for 6weeks, then abstained for another 6weeks.
The results where a significant rise of HDL cholesterol during the first 6week period wand reduced back when they had to abstain from alcohol the following 6weeks. From 41 to 49 mg/dl.
The conclusion of this study suggests that moderate alcohol intake may have some protective effects against both cardiovascular disease and cholesterol gallstones.
To quote center of Disease control and prevention
moderate alcohol consumption is defined as having up to 1 drink per day for women and up to 2 drinks per day for men.
.jpg)
