Two recent studies point to how since ancient times fermented alcohol, even wine and beer, were boiled and therefore often safer to drink than the watering hole where the pigs and cattle may have been. It could have been noted through many periods of stomach sicknesses that those who drank beer and wine survived, while those who had imbibed the fresh water supply available may have picked up microbes, cholera, other dangerous pathogens.

The tavern may have been the safest watering hole in town. It is possible that people who drank fermented beverages tended to live longer and reproduce more, than did their tee totalling peers, says Patrick McGovern, an archaeological chemist at the University of Pennsylvania, which may partly explain why people have a proclivity to drink alcohol.

The how to excess flows from that naturally, as shown in the next study reported from scientists at Toronto's Center for Addiction and Mental Health, with darker news about alcohol. We have all accepted the studies that report that a bottle of dark beer or glass of red wine is good for our heart and circulatory system. And that is true, but it seems that has encourage some of us to rather hit the bottle for our health.

And that may have us having heart healthy dinner parties where the wine, beers of all light colors and hard alcohol flows, and flows. Those of us on this health track are not candidates to age well, if at all. Tim Stockwell, of the Center for Addiction Research of British Columbia in Canada says, that moderate drinking is a sign of good health, not a cause of it, citing a recent Australian study, which has confirmed other studies on alcohol..

Some studies have indicated that the maximum alcohol benefit is half a drink a day for women, and one and a half a day for men.

People do not hear that. What they take in is that a bottle or two of red wine at a sitting is probably good for you. And that is a huge propaganda coup for the people making the alcohol. Cirrhosis, irreversible destruction of liver cells that was once only seen in elderly is now found growing in those between 25 to 34.

These risks increase for cancers to the larynx, pharynx, esophagus, liver, colon and rectum. For women it seems alcohol related cancers kick in at fairly moderate levels of consumption.

So party, but not so hardy, and with less volume of poisoning ethanol. We all need to be aware that the buzz in booze, could be sending you to pain and a sad death all too soon. Studies show that after two beers we are more agreeable to give a painful electric shock to anyone who annoys us.

Who was that respected doctor in London who drank some evil potion and then turned into a terrible monster- well, apparently after two beers, every gent becomes a lout, and his dainty lady becomes a biker girl at heart. So it is up to each of us, as Tiny Tim might have said. So, be good, be wise, be aware. Stay sober.