After completing his medical training at Guy's Hospital London, continuing in neurology to MRCP, he went on to his psychiatric training in Oxford, he continued there as a lecturer and then later as a Wellcome Senior Fellow in psychiatry. He then spent two years as Chief of the Section of Clinical Science in the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in NIH, Bethesda, USA. On returning to England in 1988 he set up the Psychopharmacology Unit in Bristol University, an interdisciplinary research grouping spanning the departments of Psychiatry and Pharmacology before moving to Imperial College London in December 2008 where he leads a similar group with a particular focus on brain imaging especially PET. It’s by far the most harmful food product in the grocery store. And that’s really saying something. Chapters 1-5 are the "why" - chemistry and biology - and chapters 6-10 are the "how" - psychology and sociology.

The limit in much of Europe is .05, while it's .02 in at least four countries and .00 in four more. One explanation is that business interests have more influence on government in the US than in Europe. "Reducing the limit to 0.05 percent would reduce the accident risk by half, even though it wouldn’t halve the amount people can drink." It seems fairly clear that there is nothing in alcohol that is directly beneficial: resveratrol, an antioxidant often credited with health-boosting properties, is only present in minuscule amounts in red wine. “The World Health Organization outlines its thinking quite clearly,” says Dr Inge Kersbergen, a lecturer in public health at the University of Sheffield. “Essentially, even low amounts of alcohol consumption increase our risk of seven different types of cancer and there is no evidence that any protective effects for other diseases outweigh this increase in cancer risk. So, even though the health risks of light drinking are small, people shouldn’t drink alcohol to try to improve their health.” David Nutt is Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology and director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit in the Division of Brain Sciences at Imperial College, London. Many of us know the feeling of wanting a drink after a stressful day at work or enjoying a Friday evening pint at the pub. Drinking is a part of numerous celebrations, sporting events and bank holidays across the UK and the world. Yet, the 9 billion pounds spent by the UK’s National Health Services and police force on alcohol-related incidents per year are barely discussed. Drink? invites you to question not only the normalcy of these actions in our lives, but how, personally and through policy, we can reduce the harm caused by drinking.And it is a very scary book. I thought I knew most facts about the dangers, but Nutt goes into great detail about how alcohol affects every part of the body, what's involved in hangovers, fetal alcohol syndrome, and the types of cancers related to its use. He explains the drugs used for treatment of alcoholics. A good way to drink consciously is to count your drinks and plan them for the week. If you know you will be drinking 2 nights in a given week, and then plan to have no more than 4 drinks on each of those nights, you are more likely to not exceed/overdrink. A lot of people have the believe that a small amount of alcohol is good for your health. This is particularly prevalent in France, where people believe a glass of wine a day is good for you. But the science so far has been clear: "A 2018 review in The Lancet, one of the leading medical journals, was called—pretty definitively—"No Level of Alcohol Consumption Improves Health." Their conclusion was that, on balance, any protection would be more than canceled out by the negative effects. " You can die from alcohol poisoning, it is the leading cause of death in young people according to the WHO.

Nutt identifies alcohol as one of the most, if not the most harmful drug (legal or illegal) in common use.It is well establihed that heavy drinkers are less fertile. "It lowers libido and increases the likelihood of impotence." While there is no single commonly accepted cause of hangovers, several bad things tend to happen in combination after a big night out. I've never been in a bar or tavern, and I don't have a problem meeting plenty of good people. The crowd I'm around does not drink. I belong to a friendly church with social activities. Yes, I've taught Sunday School and many kids' programs, great experiences. I belong to a Christian writers' group. I have ministered on a jail team for 15 years as a volunteer assistant chaplain, as well, and had plenty of experiences with hundreds of alcoholics, all of whom started out as social drinkers. Still: it had good stuff in it, here and there. And if you know nothing about the subject, maybe you can start with this. Irrelevant to which part of the book some of his suggestions appeared, a few concerned me. Although one section is subtitled, "Hangover Cures: What's the Evidence," implying he's presenting information and not recommendations, since this is a self-help book, I might assume that most readers aren't processing the "What's the Evidence" portion of the heading and merely focusing on the promise of "Hangover Cures."

When it comes to the brain, "The leading preventable causes of dementia are head injury and the damage alcohol does to the brain. At least one in five cases of dementia is probably due to alcohol. Women may experience brain damage at lower levels of alcohol intake than men." Though there is contradictory evidence about moderate consump- tion, it is "absolutely certain that heavy drinking (adversely) affects the brain."

Your browser is not supported

But sometimes he still spouts a factoid that he doesn't substantiate with a citation. I'd like to see the documentation of these assertions, Professor Nutt! Some people drink before bedtime, but it's not advisable because it disrupts sleep after the first few hours. In addition, drinking before sleep increases snoring, which can lead to