Alcohol and Exercise

Earlier this week, sitting so nicely in my in-box was a link to a brief review of a recently printed article on the correlation between alcohol and exercise. The result of the study is that the more you drink alcohol the more you are likely to exercise. (See summary here!)

I wasn't sure what to think about this article. What message are we sending to the general public? And what exactly are we learning here? You exercise more when you're an alcoholic? Great!? We all know that the risks of excessive drinking outweigh any potential benefits- even ones like increased physical activity.

After my initial reaction (?overreaction), I was then able to find this article, which gave me a little clarification. I appreciate that one thought behind this study was too look at behaviors of individuals. "...[I]ndividuals’ motivation to prevent disease or improve health could cause the clustering of health behaviors." Basically, if you act one way on one subject, you are likely to act similarly in another subject. If we can identify the clustering of behaviors, then we (health professionals and researchers) might be able to come up with detailed plans aimed at targeting these behaviors and help to efficiently and successfully reduce harmful behaviors!

The studies are interesting. The hard part, for the layman, is reading between the lines and figuring out what the study is (or is not) suggesting.

Remember that according the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, alcohol should be limited to one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men. One drink is defined as a 12oz beer, 5 fl oz wine, or 1.5 fl oz 80-proof distilled liquor. Read more about alcohol recommendations here!