Alcohol, health loss and mortality: can wine really save the good name of moderate alcohol consumption?

Abstract

health loss, and mortality 1 diuretic, and antidiarrheic properties around the 4th century BC. For ages, until the 20th century, alcohol was widely used as a medicinal remedy, as seen in the New Testament's parable of the Good Samaritan, where wine was applied to dress wounds. 1,2 In Poland, the first vineyards appeared 1000 years ago on the Wawel Hill. Wine is a drink resulting from alcoholic fermentation, obtained exclusively from fresh grapes or their juice (so -called must), with a possible addition of permitted substances, produced in accordance with established enological processes. 1,2 It is believed that fermented drinks were consumed as far back as in the Late Neolithic period. The earliest surviving texts mentioning beer brewing and consumption date back to around 4000 BC from Mesopotamia. 1,2 Brief history of alcohol consumption Determining the exact origins of alcohol consumption is challenging. The history of wine began in Georgia 8000 years ago. Hippocrates did not recommend wine to children and pregnant women, and he expressed his philosophy regarding the beneficial effects of wine in a well -known principle: "Wine is fit for man in a wonderful way provided that it is taken with good sense by the sick as well as the healthy." Galen, who successfully developed this theory, also considered wine an important element of medical therapy. In his work De antidotis, he also mentioned many wine -based antidotes against poisons commonly used at that time. 1,2 Growing popularity of alcohol consumption was linked to its perceived medicinal properties. Aristotle noted wine's sedative, analgesic,