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Alcohol for cold: poison or medicine?
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Anecdote about alcohol with cold : "And how do you protect your husband from harmful microbes? Try the vodka! 50 grams before eating protect it from all known microbes. And 100 grams - from all unknowns. "
And now jokes aside: С2Н5ОН - a poison of the slowed down action, destroying human health. According to the prominent psychiatrist and neurologist Vladimir Bekhterev, "alcohol is a poison for every living creature - plants and animals ... Even small doses of alcohol have, as research has shown, a harmful effect on a person's mental abilities." And not only mental.
Benefits and harms of alcohol during colds: "both determine the dose"
Getting into the blood, liver, cerebrospinal fluid and brain, alcohol leads to disruption of many functions of the body and development of atrophic processes in almost all organs.
Even in people who drink strong drinks in "moderate amounts" and only "on occasion", irreversible destructive processes occur in the cerebral cortex, insulin production in the pancreas decreases, the synthesis of structural and enzyme proteins slows down, and the processes of tissue regeneration at the cellular level are suppressed. And this is far from a complete "track record" of the negative consequences of the action of ethyl alcohol, in which we did not list the psychological and social problems of excessive consumption of alcohol and obvious alcoholism ...
But, according to the saying of the famous Swiss physician and alchemist Paracelsus, "everything is poison, and everything is a medicine, both determine the dose."
Experienced Americans, from the Carnegie Mellon University Research Center in Pennsylvania, in 1993, conducted an experiment to determine the benefits and harms of alcohol during the cold and its effect on the level of resistance of the human body to acute respiratory infections and ARVI. As a result of the experiment, which was put on two groups of volunteers with a total of 390 people, it turned out that a normal portion of whiskey (2 ounces or 57 ml) or a pint of beer (473 ml) to those who already fell ill did not help. But the healthy "experimental" infection of the virus is not affected.
Why did the "therapeutic dose" of alcohol produce a positive effect, the researchers did not comment on. And, really, why?
Treatment of a cold with alcohol, or what is the secret of "ryumochnoy therapy"
Perhaps the whole point is that alcohol is a disinfectant, and by draining a glass of vodka neutralizes microbes and viruses that have fallen on the mucous membrane of the throat. In this case, a couple of sips of strong alcohol is the prevention of a possible disease. But this in no way means that treating colds with alcohol is really possible.
No impossible! Doctors say that as a result of the effects of alcohol on the already inflamed mucous pharynx, its swelling will increase, and this - on the contrary - will increase inflammation. In addition, alcohol acts as a diuretic and dehydrates the body, and over-dried mucous membranes are much more susceptible to infection. At elevated temperature, alcohol is strictly contraindicated, since in the presence of an infection in the body, most organs suffer from toxins produced by microbes that enter our blood.
But why does a glass of vodka still prevent a possible cold? We emphasize: it is impossible to cure, namely to prevent the onset of the disease.
Maybe some other biochemical mechanism of the human body works? For example, the ability of alcohol to change the acid-base balance of the blood towards acidity ...
In the normal state, the acidity (pH) of human blood plasma is 7.37-7.43 pH. During illness, with physical overloads and exposure to many other unfavorable factors, the level of acidity of blood shifts towards acidification. In particular, as a reaction to the inflammation of any etiology, including colds. This is because the production of interferon by the body, which can neutralize viruses, is accelerated only in an acidic environment.
In addition, increasing the pH of the blood contributes to greater permeability of small capillaries and cell membranes, which stimulates the absorption of oxygen by the body and activates the metabolism. That is, the body begins to struggle hard with the disease. And when this fight is over, the acidity of the blood again comes back to normal.
So it turns out that, while acidifying the blood, a glass of vodka with a clear threat to be off with a cold, can really be useful for the prevention of this disease.
Alcohol for colds: drinks for prevention
Let us recall the already mentioned alchemist Paracelsus and immediately abandon the "horse doses". With a slight chill after hypothermia, after feeling the first signs of a cold, it is enough to drink a cup of hot tea before going to bed, adding to it 50-75 ml of dry red wine and a teaspoon of honey.
Instead of tea with wine, you can use hot vermouth with the same honey. As alcohol for colds, men, obviously, prefer vodka. For them, such a recipe: in 100 ml of vodka add red ground pepper (at the tip of the knife), stir, warm and drink - immediately going to the side under the blanket.
Very easy to prepare grog with honey: half a glass of strong black tea is added 50 ml of cognac, 1-2 teaspoons of honey and a circle of lemon. And in Britain, in such situations, they drink a hot punch (cold drink at parties). To prepare it you will need: 200 ml of strong black tea, 2 tbsp. Spoons of sugar, 50-100 ml of cognac (or rum), 200 ml of red table wine, juice of one orange and one lemon. All mixed and heated not to a boil.
German "flaming wine" - mulled wine - is considered the most effective alcohol for colds and a warming agent in cold weather. The simplest recipe is: a bottle of dry (or semi-dry) red wine, 300 ml of water, half a cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons of honey and spices - cinnamon, cloves, lemon peel, baden, ginger, nutmeg (a little of everything). The mixture is heated in enameled ware to + 70-80 ° C and allowed to stand for 15-20 minutes under the lid.
The Ministry of Health of Ukraine warns: the use of alcohol harms your health.
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