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Thursday, May 29, 2008

Drink Enough to Cover Your Bases

A co-worker sent me a BusinessWeek article discussing the impact of drinking on bone fragility. See the link if you want the real scoop. But here's my skewed summary. Using 0 drinks a day as the base, the report basically says that if you drink up to 1/2 drinks a day, your chance of hip fracture is reduced by 15%. 1/2 to 1 drinks a day means your chances are LESSENED by 20% and 1 to 2 drinks means your chances are LESSENED by 9%. If you drink more than 2 drinks a day, your chances are INCREASED by 39%. That's great news.

Now, by my math, by my first 1/2 drink, I've lowered my chances of breaking a hip by 15%. As I finish my second 1/2 of the drink and move on to my second drink, my chances are lowered by another 20% and when I quaff my 2nd drink to the bottom, my chances are lowered by another 9%. That gives me a 45% lower chance for breaking a hip. That means when I crank through drinks 3 thru whatever, I increase my chances of breaking a hip by 39%. But what do I care, I've got a spare 6% (45% minus 39%). Hell, my bones are getting stronger. I don't see any flaws in this logic.

I didn't see any mention of double bonuses from milk stouts, but I'm guessing they are there. What I also didn't see were the chances of severe brain damage from this level of drinking, but I doubt there is any real evidence of that. I'm living proof.

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