----- Original Message -----
From: "Craig Coonrad" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2003 1:51 AM
Subject: Re: Consumption Not Equal to Healthful


> On Thu, 12 Jun 2003, gts wrote:
>
> > Craig Coonrad wrote:
> >
> > > There is a co-relation between the amount of time a group of
> > > people have been drinking alcohol (I'm not talking about
> > > rotten fruit)

If we presume that our genentic relationship to alcohol was formed during
those eons when we strolled the middle part of the African continent, would
there have been rotten fruit, or at least the need to eat it? Isn't that the
part of the world were there is constantly different kinds of fruits and
veggies in different state of developement? If the oranges aren't ready, the
melons are! What a lovely world! Or...?

and the incidence of alcohol addiction and
> > > other negative consequences that go with that.
> > >
> > > Some relative examples are as follows:
> > >
> > > culture                 exposure to alcohol     alcoholism
> > > -----------------------------------------------------------
> > > medditeranean           long term               low
> > > northern europeans      med term                med
> > > American Indian         short term              high

What do you mean with alcoholism? The moral bit, the economic bit or the
medical bit? In Sweden we have always said that we drink so very  much and
that we cannot handle alcohol because here the men used to get pissed on 40%
booze every Saturday night (in modern time they started on Friday night) and
then they sobered up to fit for work on Monday morning.

In France and Italy they drank wine for almost all meals and were always
more or less intoxicated but seldom really drunk.

The result of these two ways of drinking is more intestinal damages like
cirrhosis in the winedrinkers than in the boozers but nothing in the
behavior indicated this.

Nowadays when the Swedes want to be more continental (and the the wine
producers want our money)  we have taken up the "every day wine and beer
drinking" habits but not yet stopped the "getting pissed bit". You can
imagine the outcome.
Still our consumption of pure alcohol is less than on the continent.
Eva