Alcohol and Weight Gain: Have We Had it Wrong All Along?
By: Nicole Nichols,
SparkPeople Blogger
3/19/2010 12:11 PM
: 214 comments
: 47,022 Views
Did you down a couple of green-tinted beers this past Wednesday? What better time than post-St. Patty's Day to talk about how alcohol affects your weight. One new study questions if what we thought we knew about alcohol and weight management holds true. No, I'm not trying to send you into a shame spiral for indulging on Wednesday's famous drinking holiday, so don't worry. But since you may still have alcohol calories on your mind, well here it goes.
When it comes to weight management, one of the easiest things many people can do to cut back on calories is to drink less alcohol—or give it up altogether. After all, alcohol contributes non-nutritious ("empty") calories to your diet, can make you more likely to overeat when you're under its influence, and often results in more calories being stored as fat. Plus when you're on a calorie-controlled diet, you need to make the most of the calories you consume, choosing super nutritious foods to give you the most bang for your calorie budget. Makes sense, right?
If that's true, you may say, then people who drink the most are probably more likely to be overweight and people who drink the least (or not at all) would be more likely to maintain a trim, healthy weight. That is logical, but a recent study published in the March 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine found that nondrinkers were actually more likely to gain weight than people who consumed "moderate" amounts of alcohol. (Yes, that is counterintuitive.) So is there more to this story or should you go back out to the bar and chug another beer in an effort to keep your weight down?
For more than a decade, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston tracked the drinking habits of more than 19,000 women (ages 39 and up) who had "normal weight" BMIs at the start of the study. According to Tara Parker-Pope who reported on this study for The New York Times, 60% of these women were self-reported "light" or "regular" drinkers of alcohol and 40% reported drinking no alcohol at the start of the study. Over the course of the 13-year study, 41% of the previously "normal" weight women became overweight or obese, and interestingly, the non-drinkers actually gained the most weight—about nine pounds each. Self-reported "moderate" drinkers gained less: three pounds on average. Researchers calculated that the risk of becoming overweight was about 30% lower for moderate drinkers (1-2 alcoholic drinks daily) than for non-drinkers.
My mind hurts a little trying to make sense of that. So I used my best critical thinking skills and talked with SparkPeople's head dietitian, Becky Hand, a licensed and registered dietitian, to come up with a few important takeaways from this study. Here's what you need to know before you pick up a new drinking habit in an effort to control your weight.
"I consider this to be preliminary research," says Becky Hand, MS Ed, LD, RD. "Additional research is needed before anyone should take recommendations from this." As Parker-Pope points out in her blog, a lot of research on alcohol is conflicting, and the findings regarding this group of women differs from similar studies done with men. "You can't apply what happens during a single study to everyone," Becky cautions. "Notice that in this study, all alcohol intake, food intake, and weight information was self-reported by the study participants. It's well known that study subjects tend to underreport what they really eat, over-report their adherence to healthy habits, and fudge their weights, sometimes deliberately and sometimes without realizing they are doing it at all." That's why any study that uses self-reporting to gather data should always be taken with a grain of salt; unlike a laboratory setting, these variables are not truly controlled or 100% accurate.
She also encourages adults to keep the American Heart Association's guidelines for alcohol consumption in mind: no more than one or two daily drinks for men, no more than one drink daily for women. (One drink is equal to a 12 oz. beer, 4 oz. of wine, 1.5 oz. of 80-proof spirits, or 1 oz. of 100-proof spirits.) If you're cutting calories to lose weight, you might not be able to fit alcohol into your program (at least on a regular basis) and still meet your body's macronutrient (protein, carbohydrate, fat) and micronutrient (vitamins, minerals) needs.
"For people who are following reduced-calorie diets," Becky explains, "alcohol can take the place of otherwise nutritious and low-calorie foods that are beneficial to the body." This is precisely what happened with the women in this study.
"Women who drank alcohol reported fewer calories from food sources, particularly carbohydrates," wrote the Parker-Pope. Could that mean that there isn't anything innately special about imbibing that speeds up metabolism or triggers a unique fat-fighting physiology? Probably. It's more likely that those women who reported drinking alcohol without gaining weight ate less food calories in order to drink more alcohol calories. It's not a bad idea to skim a few hundred calories out of your diet in order to fit in a special drink.
"That's fine to do occasionally, like on St. Patrick's Day or other celebrations" says Becky, "but not something women should make a habit of. Proper nutrition from food should always be your first priority, especially if you're following a reduced-calorie diet."
That's partly because alcohol is an "antinutrient," which means that it does not provide any beneficial nutrients to the body (besides calories), and may actually interfere with vitamin and mineral absorption. The health risks and potential side effects of alcohol are well known. We may not think of it as such, but it is classified as a drug and has been proven to deplete vitamins (including folic acid and vitamins B-12, C, D, and E), minerals (calcium, magnesium, potassium, zinc and selenium), amino acids and essential fats from the body when consumed in excessive amounts. According to the American Heart Association, heavy alcohol intake increases such dangers as alcoholism, high blood pressure, obesity, stroke, breast cancer, suicide and accidents. It's not possible to predict in which people alcoholism will become a problem. Given these and other risks, the American Heart Association cautions abstainers NOT to start drinking alcohol just to gain the purported health benefits of the drug. And always, consult your doctor on the benefits and risks of consuming alcohol in moderation.
What worries me about studies like these is that so many men and women who are desperate to lose weight will take this as a recommendation to drink more. I don't think that's too far-fetched, especially with the popularity of diet pills, weight-loss gimmicks, and recent reports that 80% of women would undergo risky weight-loss surgery to lose weight if they could. With so many naturally healthy foods and beverages to choose from, should we really be encouraging women to drink more alcohol in order to control their weight?
Admittedly, I do not drink alcohol. I come from a long line of family members who simply don't drink, and I guess they passed that lifestyle choice on to me. I would fit into the non-drinkers in this study, but I do not believe that I am doomed to become overweight or obese in the next dozen years just because that happened to some of the women studied here. And I'm definitely not going to start drinking now in order to prevent weight problems, as the outcome of this study seems to encourage.
What about you: Do you agree with the findings in this study? How has drinking, not drinking, or limiting alcohol affected your weight?
When it comes to weight management, one of the easiest things many people can do to cut back on calories is to drink less alcohol—or give it up altogether. After all, alcohol contributes non-nutritious ("empty") calories to your diet, can make you more likely to overeat when you're under its influence, and often results in more calories being stored as fat. Plus when you're on a calorie-controlled diet, you need to make the most of the calories you consume, choosing super nutritious foods to give you the most bang for your calorie budget. Makes sense, right?
If that's true, you may say, then people who drink the most are probably more likely to be overweight and people who drink the least (or not at all) would be more likely to maintain a trim, healthy weight. That is logical, but a recent study published in the March 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine found that nondrinkers were actually more likely to gain weight than people who consumed "moderate" amounts of alcohol. (Yes, that is counterintuitive.) So is there more to this story or should you go back out to the bar and chug another beer in an effort to keep your weight down?
For more than a decade, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston tracked the drinking habits of more than 19,000 women (ages 39 and up) who had "normal weight" BMIs at the start of the study. According to Tara Parker-Pope who reported on this study for The New York Times, 60% of these women were self-reported "light" or "regular" drinkers of alcohol and 40% reported drinking no alcohol at the start of the study. Over the course of the 13-year study, 41% of the previously "normal" weight women became overweight or obese, and interestingly, the non-drinkers actually gained the most weight—about nine pounds each. Self-reported "moderate" drinkers gained less: three pounds on average. Researchers calculated that the risk of becoming overweight was about 30% lower for moderate drinkers (1-2 alcoholic drinks daily) than for non-drinkers.
My mind hurts a little trying to make sense of that. So I used my best critical thinking skills and talked with SparkPeople's head dietitian, Becky Hand, a licensed and registered dietitian, to come up with a few important takeaways from this study. Here's what you need to know before you pick up a new drinking habit in an effort to control your weight.
"I consider this to be preliminary research," says Becky Hand, MS Ed, LD, RD. "Additional research is needed before anyone should take recommendations from this." As Parker-Pope points out in her blog, a lot of research on alcohol is conflicting, and the findings regarding this group of women differs from similar studies done with men. "You can't apply what happens during a single study to everyone," Becky cautions. "Notice that in this study, all alcohol intake, food intake, and weight information was self-reported by the study participants. It's well known that study subjects tend to underreport what they really eat, over-report their adherence to healthy habits, and fudge their weights, sometimes deliberately and sometimes without realizing they are doing it at all." That's why any study that uses self-reporting to gather data should always be taken with a grain of salt; unlike a laboratory setting, these variables are not truly controlled or 100% accurate.
She also encourages adults to keep the American Heart Association's guidelines for alcohol consumption in mind: no more than one or two daily drinks for men, no more than one drink daily for women. (One drink is equal to a 12 oz. beer, 4 oz. of wine, 1.5 oz. of 80-proof spirits, or 1 oz. of 100-proof spirits.) If you're cutting calories to lose weight, you might not be able to fit alcohol into your program (at least on a regular basis) and still meet your body's macronutrient (protein, carbohydrate, fat) and micronutrient (vitamins, minerals) needs.
"For people who are following reduced-calorie diets," Becky explains, "alcohol can take the place of otherwise nutritious and low-calorie foods that are beneficial to the body." This is precisely what happened with the women in this study.
"Women who drank alcohol reported fewer calories from food sources, particularly carbohydrates," wrote the Parker-Pope. Could that mean that there isn't anything innately special about imbibing that speeds up metabolism or triggers a unique fat-fighting physiology? Probably. It's more likely that those women who reported drinking alcohol without gaining weight ate less food calories in order to drink more alcohol calories. It's not a bad idea to skim a few hundred calories out of your diet in order to fit in a special drink.
"That's fine to do occasionally, like on St. Patrick's Day or other celebrations" says Becky, "but not something women should make a habit of. Proper nutrition from food should always be your first priority, especially if you're following a reduced-calorie diet."
That's partly because alcohol is an "antinutrient," which means that it does not provide any beneficial nutrients to the body (besides calories), and may actually interfere with vitamin and mineral absorption. The health risks and potential side effects of alcohol are well known. We may not think of it as such, but it is classified as a drug and has been proven to deplete vitamins (including folic acid and vitamins B-12, C, D, and E), minerals (calcium, magnesium, potassium, zinc and selenium), amino acids and essential fats from the body when consumed in excessive amounts. According to the American Heart Association, heavy alcohol intake increases such dangers as alcoholism, high blood pressure, obesity, stroke, breast cancer, suicide and accidents. It's not possible to predict in which people alcoholism will become a problem. Given these and other risks, the American Heart Association cautions abstainers NOT to start drinking alcohol just to gain the purported health benefits of the drug. And always, consult your doctor on the benefits and risks of consuming alcohol in moderation.
What worries me about studies like these is that so many men and women who are desperate to lose weight will take this as a recommendation to drink more. I don't think that's too far-fetched, especially with the popularity of diet pills, weight-loss gimmicks, and recent reports that 80% of women would undergo risky weight-loss surgery to lose weight if they could. With so many naturally healthy foods and beverages to choose from, should we really be encouraging women to drink more alcohol in order to control their weight?
Admittedly, I do not drink alcohol. I come from a long line of family members who simply don't drink, and I guess they passed that lifestyle choice on to me. I would fit into the non-drinkers in this study, but I do not believe that I am doomed to become overweight or obese in the next dozen years just because that happened to some of the women studied here. And I'm definitely not going to start drinking now in order to prevent weight problems, as the outcome of this study seems to encourage.
What about you: Do you agree with the findings in this study? How has drinking, not drinking, or limiting alcohol affected your weight?
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Comments
Here is what I've learned and have become convinced about.
It depends on what you drink and when you drink it.
If you are someone who drinks beer after work most days, chances are you are going to pack on the pounds. Beer has an enormous number of calories, and a serving size is HUGE. If you drink beer in a pub, chances are you'll also indulge in salty, fatty bar snacks with high calories also - like nuts, pretzels - and then there is the pizza or takeaway food that is often served in these venues.
If you prefer wine, it's easier to moderate in my opinion. And if you drink red wine, it's harder to drink in copious amounts (unless you have an alcohol problem) and chances are, your taste in venues will probably be a notch up from a pub so snacks won't be handed out freely etc...
If you prefer spirits, chances are you are either an infrequent drinker or the exact opposite a very heavy drinker...
The more alcohol you drink, the less you want to eat - so, to my point about when you drink; the earlier in the day you start, the more likely you are to skip snacks and dinner...you just don't feel like eating the drunker you become...
Don't know about you, but most alcoholics I've met are very slim, largely because they don't eat...and I believe it's because it alters the brain chemistry so much you simply don't want to eat...
That's my thoughts as someone who has very much enjoyed alcohol throughout adulthood, but has never gained an enormous amount of weight... - 4/17/2013 10:56:12 PM
But I really don't eat much when I'm drinking. I know if I'm at a restaurant, I'll be hungry and order food. By the time the food comes, I've had at least 1 or 2 beers, and I'm so not hungry anymore; I might end up having two or three bites of my meal. So that's maybe 100-250 calories from my beer or wine, instead of the 400 or 500+ I would have eaten at dinner.
I'm a pretty avid runner and cyclist, sure, but drinking alcohol has not had an effect on my weight in the slightest. I thought I would have gained a significant amount since ramping up my drinking in the past few years, but I weigh the same now as I did when I was 20 years old- 110lbs. I think there's something to these studies, don't discount them completely. - 3/18/2013 6:31:47 PM
Also, emotional eaters can really shove down the calories when they eat, but I can go on a major drinking binge for 800 calories, skip dinner, and still stay under 1500 or 2000 calories for the day.
Not saying this is healthy or recommended, just thinking of why a drinker could weigh less than a non-drinker. - 10/17/2011 6:50:45 PM
But... I don't feel like I need to drink wine every single day or every meal. So some weeks, I might not have a sip at all. Other weeks, I might have had 1 or 2 glasses. During the High Holy Days, I might be having a glass or two every day during the week long festival. Probably on a yearly average though, my average is probably 1 glass of wine a week.
In my younger days, I drank liquors like Amaretto, and so my experiences with cocktails and hard liquors is limited. Many times I'd drink something and not really know what was in it. Margaritas and daiquari's I've had, since they are mostly fruit with some (thing) hard liquor. If I cared, I guess I'd go study a BarTender's guide to mixed drinks...ha. I haven't bothered to try a Cosmos or some of the supposedly "sophisticated" drinks. But it did seem like I gained more weight drinking a cocktail, maybe because they were sweet and I tended to want to eat more stuff to counteract the alcohol (because I didn't want to get drunk and have problems driving myself home.).
So anyway, this isn't the be all or end all. I'm sure there is more that I don't know about it, but it does seem like drinking some red wine helps me more so than just drinking hard alcohol for the sheer joy of drinking with friends etc... otherwise, I've always been somewhat heavy regardless of whether I drank wine or hard drinks, or whether I abstained. - 3/22/2011 3:30:19 PM
Studies of all kinds change their "findings" constantly. If we followed them all literally we'd be dizzzzy by now!
Take it with "a grain of salt" & enjoy life.
- 2/16/2011 7:51:52 PM
Me thinks there's a variable or three unaccounted for in this study. Pity, because yesterday I had 2.5 beers over the evening, which I do maybe 1ce/month, and was hoping I hadn't blown my plan for the day. This article was to have been my salvation! My justification! Alas, no. - 4/22/2010 9:13:23 AM
But would we really substitute weighing 10 pounds less for putting so much poison into our bodies? I'd rather weigh 10 pounds more and know that I'm feeding my body healthy nutrients and staying strong with execise. That being said, I also enjoy a nice glass of wine here or there. So, moderation is definitely the key. A few drinks won't do much harm and may suppress your appetite, but going overboard 6 nights a week like in college is unhealthy.
I truly believe drinking attitudes change with maturity. If I commented on this blog 3 years ago my opinion would have been much different :) - 4/20/2010 11:52:56 AM
Light-moderate alcohol use can be an okay way to self-medicate for stress. (IMO, probably just as healthy if not more so than many prescribed anti-anxiety meds)
Decreased stress means 2 things, weight loss-wise:
1) less stress-eating
2) less cortisol production (cortisol being a stress-hormone that encourages weight gain, especially around the mid-section - the most health-threatening fat)
Before anyone jumps on me, I am NOT saying the drinking is the best way to manage stress, just that it might go towards explaining the study findings.
I happen to enjoy a nice glass of wine. Moderation is, as with most everything else, the key. I don't overindulge (except maybe once or twice a year at a party or something). Most of the time, I drink anywhere from 1-4 glasses of wine a week. I don't know if it helps my weight loss efforts, but I don't think a little bit hurts. A side note: I haven't imbibed a drop this week, I've been great with my eating and exercise, and I gained weight! Coincidence? Maybe I should break open a bottle! ;-)
- 4/9/2010 10:44:42 AM
As I have matured I drink less, my lifestyle has changed. I am home in the evenings.
My friends tend to do the same, we are more relaxed, we allow an indulgence once in a while. Instead of franticaly trying to fit into a sweet little number that reveals all, we wear relaxing outfits that do tend to hide a bit. - 4/9/2010 8:54:50 AM
The real test again will be when Football season starts up. - 4/6/2010 7:04:50 PM
Hooray for moderation, the Golden Mean. - 3/25/2010 11:39:21 PM
Check the calories and such on the drink or drinks you are going to have before hand. Maybe it will help you decide on something that is much lighter. Change is always good!
I would combine the food and drinks you are planning to have together and see if it is in your food plan. You don't want to risk to much then you will have to really work it off the following day.
I don't think it is a good idea to drink everyday no matter what it is. I can agree 1 or 2 drinks in a week will be ok. Alcohol is in the same category is sodas.. You can gain a lot and get the tummy flex and no one wants that.
How about not drink and find something else. Find something that is good tasting without the alcohol.
Cheers - 3/24/2010 2:48:49 PM
I don't understand why this article is hell bent on demonizing alcohol. It is not simply empty calories. Some forms of alcohol actual contain some powerful antioxidants.
The whole key is MODERATION. It is okay to have alcohol in moderation, and it may have some health BENEFITS depending on source et all.
And who the hell is going to go from being a non-drinker to an alcoholic because of some stupid study? The author seems to be terrified of this idea. - 3/24/2010 12:05:54 AM
Maybe its time to add a little Vino back into my diet. I am not saying I am going to go hog wild and start downing bottles of wine, but I will definately think about adding a glass with dinner again. - 3/23/2010 2:11:26 PM
Can alcohol cause a person to gain weight ? Definitely ! Although keep in mind that if a person overeats spinach, they'll pack on weight too. Of course, it would take an insane amount of spinach to gain weight. My point, if you eat or drink too much of anything, you'll gain weight. All things in moderation. - 3/23/2010 9:27:39 AM
Personally, I am a light drinker--I probably average no more than 2 drinks a month. I don't really see them as a real threat to either my health or my weight--chocolate and soft drinks are the much larger threat for me. I would not advocate that anyone who was not a drinker to start drinking to lose weight (or for any other reason); if you drink within moderation, it isn't necessarily something to worry about either. - 3/23/2010 12:47:51 AM
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