Sorry, But You Should Absolutely Not Use Beer As A Painkiller

For SELF, by Zahra Barnes. We hate to be buzzkills, but if you recently heard that a study proved beer is a better painkiller than medications like Tylenol, that’s not quite the case. In reality, the study results aren’t as cut and dried as that. The meta-analysis in question was published in The Journal of Pain in December 2016, and it’s making waves again (we get it — the weather warms up, everyone gets extra excited about the prospect of a cold beer, us included). In the meta-analysis, researchers looked at 18 different studies involving 404 total participants in an effort to study beer’s potential to dull pain intensity and boost pain threshold. They found that achieving a blood alcohol content (BAC) level of 0.08, or three to four drinks, was associated with a rise in study participants’ pain thresholds, although the effect was small. The more impressive effect was on pain intensity—once study participants reached 0.08 BAC, they experienced a moderate to large decrease in pain intensity. “We found that when people were given alcohol, their pain ratings were around 25 percent lower compared to when nothing was administered or a placebo was given,” study coauthor Trevor Thompson, Ph.D., faculty of education and health at London’s University of Greenwich, tells SELF. Both effects were related to the amount of alcohol ingested: With every additional 0.02 percent increment in blood alcohol content (around one d...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news