We all are aware of some the dangers of alcohol, from short-term ones such as alcohol poisoning to the longer term ones like liver cirrhosis. Well Nutt dives into the brain and bodily science to describe it's implications in over 200 diseases. I think that some further information on counterfactual opportunity cost, based on time/money spent related to alcohol, could have been a helpful addition to this book, albeit difficult to acquire overly didactic data on such factors.

Drink?: The New Science of Alcohol and Your Health

Although drinking in the United Kingdom has gone down slightly since 2010, overall consumption is double that of the 1960s, and Britons get drunk an average of 50 times a year. He is a professor of neuropsychopharmacology and director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit at Imperial College, London. I've been reading about the dangers of alcohol multiple times, so this didn't really offer anything new. Definitely recommend the read, whether one is curious about their own relationship with the drug, or the issue as a general cause area for an improved society. Nutt put him in an excellent position to author this book, and he did a laudable job balancing it with a sufficiently rigorous scientific/health-related dive, the effects at the personal versus the societal level, economic considerations, as well as the many benefits of alcohol that people tend to overlook.David Nutt is Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology and director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit in the Division of Brain Sciences at Imperial College, London. 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. Hard to follow the British units of alcohol measurements throughout the book, and a bit tedious at the end, but a great education for anyone who drinks alcohol- why shouldn’t we all be educated on what we are putting in our bodies? But we learn here about all the other impacts alcohol has too, from alcohol’s effects on our brain’s neurotransmitters, our hormones, mental health, cancer risks, sleep quality and quantity, other physical health effects, economics, politics, and more. The book also contains insight into the work that goes into shaping government policy around alcohol.

Drink?: The New Science of Alcohol and Health - Harvard Book

If you want to know exactly what you are doing every time you drink a beer or take a glass of wine with your meal then read this and make an informed choice. showed that people drank lager 60 percent more slowly out of straight glasses than out of outward-curving (pilsner type) ones. Although this may not be the easiest read for some, especially those of us who have never seriously considered the harms of drinking before, the questions it raises about drinking levels in the UK and its associated health problems means that I would highly recommend this book. Nutt is a Neuropsychopharmacologist as well as a owner of a wine bar and uses that background to comment on alcohol. Two days in a row of drinking is extremely bad for you as your body doesn't have time to recover and you don't sleep well, it's a downward spiral.David Nutt discusses alcohol in the same kind of context that a drug harm reduction NGO would inform about any substance, by framing it as: drinkers should mindfully find the minimum required dosage, for the pleasurable effects they seek.