Struwwelpeter: drink and live longer

STRUWWELPETER is a regular reader of the magazine, SA Foodstuffs.

Herewith extracts of a controversial recent article. Please note that he offers this totally without comment:

“There is overwhelming evidence that abstinence is a cause of heart disease and early death. People deserve to know that alcohol gives most of us a higher life expectancy – even if consumed above recommended limits …

“The evidence that abstinence from alcohol is a cause of heart disease and early death is irrefutable – yet this is almost unmentionable in the United States. Even as health bodies like Dietary Guidelines for Americans now recognise the decisive benefits from moderate drinking, each such announcement is met by an onslaught of opposition and criticism, and is always at risk of being reversed.

“Noting that even drinking at non-pathological levels above recommended moderate limits gives you a better chance of a longer life than abstaining draws louder protest still. Yet, that’s exactly what the evidence tells us.

Driven by the cultural residue of Temperance, most Americans still view drinking as unhealthy; many call alcohol toxic. Yet, despite drinking far less than many European nations, Americans have significantly worse health outcomes than heavier-drinking countries. (For example, despite being heavily out-drunk by the English, we have almost exactly twice their levels of diabetes, cancer and heart diseases.)

“Not discussing the beneficial impact of alcohol on heart disease has been a systematic policy of US public health establishment.

In 2006, the Archives of Internal Medicine, an American Medical Association journal, published an analysis based on 34 well-designed prospective studies – that is, research which follows subjects for years, even decades.

“This meta-analysis, incorporating a million subjects, found that “1 to 2 drinks per day for women and 2 to 4 drinks per day for men are inversely associated with total mortality.”

“So the more you drink – up to two drinks a day for women, and four for men – the less likely you are to die. You may have heard that before, and you may have heard it doubted. But the consensus of the science is overwhelming: It is true ….”

Read the full article on https://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/truth-wont-admit-drinking:healthy-87891/

* * *

Telephone call from Bishop Toot-Toot to the Dalai Lama:

“If you want a visa, why not change your name to Dalai Gupta?”

(Thanks Balt)

* * *

In the great days of the British Empire, a new commanding officer was sent to an African jungle outpost to relieve the retiring colonel.

After welcoming his replacement and showing the usual courtesies (gin and tonic, cucumber sandwiches etc) that protocol decrees, the retiring colonel said, “You must meet my Adjutant, Captain Smithers, he’s my right-hand man, he’s really the strength of this office. His talent is simply boundless.”

Smithers was summoned and introduced to the new CO, who was surprised to meet a humpbacked, one eyed, toothless, hairless, scabbed and pock marked specimen of humanity, a particularly unattractive man less than three feet tall.

“Smithers, old man, tell your new CO about yourself.”

“Well, sir, I graduated with honours from Sandhurst, joined the regiment and won the Military Cross and Bar after three expeditions behind enemy lines. I’ve represented Great Britain in equestrian events and won a silver medal in the middleweight division of the Olympics. I have researched the history of…”

Here the colonel interrupted, “Yes, yes, never mind that, Smithers, he can find all that in your file. Tell him about the day you told the witch doctor to bugger off.”

* * *

Gatiep was sitting reading the Cape Argus while his wife, Meraai, was busy in the kitchen. He called through to her, “Skattie, there’s a word here I don’t understand. What does ‘propaganda’ mean?”

She came in dusting the flour from her hands.

“Propaganda means like this Gatiep,” she said. “I had three kids from my eerste husband and two kids from my tweede husband. From you I have had niks, no kids. You had no kids from your eerste wife and no kids from your tweede wife. Also no kids from me.

“That shows, Gatiep, that I’m a proper goose, but you’re not a propaganda.”

(Thanks BJ)