Kate Hawkesby: I think we're best served by sticking to 'everything in moderation'

So another day, another study on alcohol - in fact I’ve seen two just in the last two weeks and of course they say different things. One says even the smallest amount of alcohol can age your brain, another says a small amount is beneficial. So which is it? I honestly believe a lot of it has to do with the makeup of your own body and metabolism, and what makes you tick, what’s in your DNA. As in, some people drink like fish their whole lives and live to almost a hundred (looking at you Prince Philip), others are lightweights who can barely finish a glass of wine without falling asleep (a.k.a me). We all have different tolerances and constitutions. Different strokes for different folks. I also think we get to know ourselves better as we get older, we work out what we can and can’t tolerate because our body lets us know. CNN reported the other day that “For decades, large epidemiological studies have shown that people who consume moderate amounts of alcohol - less than one drink a day for women, and one to two drinks a day for men - have lower risks of major cardiovascular events like heart attacks and strokes compared with people who abstain from alcohol completely as well as those who drink more. Scientists have never been able to tease out exactly why this is the case, however,” they reported. So if the scientists can’t tease it out, God help the rest of us trying to understand it. Constant mixed messaging certainly doesn’t help. A small amount of alcohol is good for your brain and heart, shouts one study, a small amount can increase your chances of cancer, shouts another. We do of course have Dry July coming up, starting next week, where we’re all encouraged to stop and think about how much we’re drinking and why, and pause for a month. I think the why’s important. Mostly I reckon its habit. A glass of wine or a beer after a hard day, or on a hot day sitting in the sunshine – it’s sort of a rite of passage. It wasn’t until I voluntarily stopped drinking one day many, many years ago that I realised I didn’t really miss it, didn’t really need it. Felt better without it. But I’m a lightweight who was never really that into alcohol in the first place. I get that if you’re a wine collector like my husband is or someone who savours the taste or just appreciates the addition of alcohol in their lives then it’s far tougher to give up. And not everyone needs to or should give up. I think if we’re aware of what we’re doing, and we’re not starting drinking at 9am or binge drinking, then we can by and large regulate ourselves. But what it’s doing to our bodies remains a mystery that I’m not sure any number of studies will get to the bottom of. The same way we hear coffee or chocolate is good for us one day, bad the next. It’s hard to keep up. I think we’re best served, as my Nana used to say, by sticking to the mantra, ‘everything in moderation’.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.