Happy Thursday Zapien 👋

We held it back until after the holidays to not spoil all your fun, but now we have to be a buzzkill. Alcohol is bad for your health. There, we ripped off the band-aid. Let's take a look at why it's so bad and how to drink if you're going to drink.

And if you're wondering what to do with all your new non-drinking time this month, our 10/14 Fitness Challenge started yesterday. If you join today, you can still complete it successfully!

Forever,
Lisa, Karol & Simon

LONGEVITY BEAT

You might have guessed it. Since it’s (dry?) January we’re decanting the alcohol topic this week.

Content on the topic of drinking from health and longevity experts like Andrew Huberman, Peter Attia or David Sinclair has reached millions of people.

No big surprise. Aren't we all still looking for confirmation that our Friday after-work beer (or daily glass of wine) habit is justified or even healthy?

Does Alcohol make you Live Longer or Shorter?

The idea that a little booze might be good for you isn't new. A handful of studies may even support it.

But the vast majority of evidence and longevity experts say the opposite: Drinking, even at moderate levels, is bad for your health and likely to shorten your life.

Another recent meta-analysis showed once again that, contrary to popular belief (and the secret wishes of many), drinking alcohol in low amounts does not have a positive effect on your overall lifespan. One tiny silver lining: At 1 drink per day or less, the meta-analysis could not detect a shortened lifespan in drinkers compared to non-drinkers. But after that, the more you drink, the earlier you die.

The Vicious Cycle of perceived Relaxation

Alcohol is a toxin to your body that is neither necessary nor nutritionally beneficial. Because it's soluble in both water and lipids, it can enter every cell in your body, including those in your brain.

Chronic alcohol use - even if you only drink 1 day a week - will change your body and brain by affecting both your neuronal and hormonal status.

If you feel like you need that one drink to relax and unwind, it’s actually because the alcohol is fixing a problem it created in the first place: Chronic alcohol intake can raise your baseline cortisol levels, making you feel stressed when you’re not drinking.

How Alcohol affects your Body

It probably isn’t news to you that chronic drinking will be hard on your liver, causing fatty liver disease, hepatitis and cirrhosis. But long before these potentially fatal effects of alcoholism, low to moderate drinking changes your body in more subtle ways that impact your health:

How much is too much?

Good question - it depends on the expert of your choice. While Huberman and Sinclair don't consume alcohol at all (and recommend it, though not in so many words), Attia cautions to stay under the limit of 1–2 drinks per day with a weekly maximum.

And of course, you can try to minimize the negative effects of alcohol on your body. Check out our Weekly Hack section to learn more.

SHORT HACK, LONG LIFE

Peter Attia in one of his podcasts rightly points out that drinking might have a positive social component. So, in the grand scheme of things, you might think that having a drink with friends every once in a while is worth losing a little sleep-over (literally).

To minimize the negative effects on your body, we've compiled a list of drinking dos and don'ts from longevity experts:

RECOMMENDED VS. FISHY

Now that you hopefully decided to replace or at least reduce your intake of alcohol, the inevitable question arises: What do you drink instead?

Recommended:

Fishy (Non-Alcoholic Alternatives):

It's very human to substitute one bad substance for another. Many non-alcoholic drinks of popular alcohol brands, such as Martini Floreale, contain tons of sugar. So do sodas and lemonades. And many hot drinks like tea & coffee contain caffeine (bad in the evening!). Surely the worst thing you can do is to start smoking again (9x more likely to cause cancer than alcohol).

Conflict of interest: None! We get no money for product links. We promote what we find useful. Please do your own research.

ZAPIEN OF THE WEEK

Markus (Germany)

What are you currently optimizing?

Currently, I am optimizing my sleep to recover faster from intense training sessions. Via “sleeping badly on purpose” through late screen time, no ear plugs etc. I developed a clear understanding about how much my sleep contributes to recovering from training. On average, I need to rest about 1.5-2 days more after training if I had just one night of bad sleep. My main focus lies on optimizing my HRV and deep sleep share of my total sleep.

What’s your favorite tool?

My favorite tools to track and optimize my sleep by far are the Oura Ring and the Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover. Not only can I track HRV and sleep phases very precisely, but also does the pod cover increase my HRV by about 20-30% by adjusting its temperature to the ideal temperature my body needs to sleep well. It goes so far that I almost can’t sleep at “usual” hotel beds any more, but that’s a different story.

BECAUSE WE LOVE NUMBERS

⚡️ 4–5 Years ⚡️

Alcohol can shorten your lifespan:

🍷 5 drinks/ week: 6 months
🍷🍷 10 drinks/ week: 1–2 years
🍷🍷🍷 14+ drinks/ week: 4–5 years

ABOUT US

Lisa has a PhD in Medical Biology. She was a researcher at Harvard Medical before developing D2C laboratory diagnostics.

Karol is a serial founder who helped thousands of people build healthy eating habits with Upfit.

Simon is a healthcare entrepreneur who brought the doctor online-booking service Doctolib to Germany.

WHEN YOU ARE READY, THIS IS HOW WE CAN HELP YOU

Health Disclaimer

New Zapien’s products and services are not intended to substitute for professional medical guidance. Our content and media offerings do not aim to diagnose, cure, or address any medical issues.Longev