BEER BELLIES OF BINGE DRINKERS

I thought the title of this post was some kind of Peter Piper tongue twister. Seriously, a new Denmark study suggests that alcoholic binge drinking seems to be the culprit of your enlarging belly.

Your wife told you that. Or your mom. There's now a group of Denmark researchers who claim that if you want a 30-or-less-than-30-waistline, you must learn to curb drinking that booze.

Professor Morton Gronbeck, Centre for Alcohol Research in Copenhagen, Denmark, said that binge drinkers tend to have more of an 'apple' shaped body --- they carry more excess weight around their waists.

He found that those who drank the same amount of alcohol each week as the binge drinker, but spread their drinking out more evenly during the week, were less likely to have big beer pots (bellies).

Prof Gronbeck said "We have some indication that people who are binge-drinking are more frequently apple-shaped. They tend to be abdominally obese, but drinking the same amount of alcohol spread out over the week would not give you an apple shape."

Apple-shaped people are at higher risk of developing coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension and diabetes.

Prof Gronbeck and team carried out a study on 57,000 people. He said people should never drink more than 4 to 5 alcoholic drinks in one day.

[Medical News Today, Nov 29 2004]

It is true.

Abdominal obesity, defined technically as waist circumference (WC) cut-points of ≥102 cm or 40 inches for men and ≥88 cm or 35 for women, has been identified as strongly asociated with coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, hypertension, hyperuricemia, and hyperlipidemia.

Since alcohol has a higher calorie equivalent, it will definitely contribute to your obesity if you do not burn it. You burn it by physical activity or exercise, and nobody exercises after a drink, right? That may not be healthy, and might even land you with broken bones or a lump in the head.

I think the suggestion to spread out alcohol drinking or to consume no more than 4-5 drinks per day is still not enough to thwart any build up of fat tissue in the upper part of your body. My personal recommendation would be to drink (any alcoholic beverage) at least twice a week, and to always have some form of exercise incorporated in your daily schedule.

If you can burn what you take in, then we will have less problems. Either that, or don't drink at all.

Your choice.