"These findings provide compelling evidence that acute alcohol consumption decreases GLP-1, a satiation signal, elucidating alcohol's 'apéritif' effect." This could increase hunger and cravings (including for more alcohol).

The double whammy is that alcohol is an extremely calorically dense substance.

Even worse, it is consumed in liquid form, which also bypasses some satiation mechanisms in the body.

There's a reason tour de France riders get most of their replacement calories in liquid form

Indeed the average base spirit has 2-3 calorie per millilitre. This is 5-6x the amount found in coca cola or pepsi. But then again, the quantities are also much less than when drinking soft drinks (hopefully).

Glucose and ethanol are metabolized through different pathways that will have different efficiencies. How much impact does that have on comparing the two?

Glucose can go right into the bloodstream (?), but ethanol needs to be reacted (taking energy) to turn into blood glucose.

This is a confusion I have about calories-in-calories-out in general, fat/carbs/protein are all metabolized with different (and variable) efficiencies. Even pro-CICO folks agree not to count ingested calories that can't be metabolized, but that's just one spot on a gradient to draw a line.

I know the efficiencies are variable among people and labels are not exact, but if you eat an amount of chicken breast labeled 100 calories, and an amount of butter labeled 100 calories, don't those numbers represent the amount of protein and fat respectively that the average person would absorb?

Almost. Protein takes a bit more energy to metabolize than fat. It gets even more complicated when food contains indigestible fiber.

I thought the energy needed to metabolize protein was included in the calorie estimation?

IDK I can down a sixpack or two pretty easily. I can’t imagine drinking so much soda or even water.

you can down a sixpack or two of stout or hoegaarden ?

Not really. I prefer IPA. It’s a nice benefit you need less of those.

And if you haven't asked a friend who's on one, taking a GLP-1 medication reduces drinking by about 50%:

https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/first-ever-randomized-tria...

Can confirm I can’t drink as much anymore and have switched to Lite beers because I don’t feel weird after drinking.

Holy crap, that explains why my cravings for alcohol have gone down significantly since I started Mounjaro.

Which is interesting because there’s a lot of Mediterranean cultures that drink after every meal (lunch & dinner).

And the reason is “for digestion”.

So this would suggest the opposite effect is happening. Drinking actually hurts digestion.

The digestif isnt the wine you drink at dinner though, it's the (different) wine you drink after dinner, and it really is very different. For example: small prosecco before dinner, then red or white wine with the food, and then a Fernet Branca at the end of the meal.

Digestifs seem to often have a bitter or aniseed element in them. I wonder if that is now known to have a legitimate scientific basis, or if it's just some kind of Mediterranean historical accident.

The alcohol is still just alcohol. It’s doesn’t matter what variety of grape it comes from.

> And the reason is “for digestion”.

This is an excuse a few use to justify drinking wine when they know it's "otherwise" unhealthy, but most people here who drink do so simply because they like it.

I like drinking, but of course this means I also like coming up with weird excuses for why to drink.

Fermenting grapes is different than any alcohol.

Is it? There has been a lot of research on stuff like antioxidants in wine but as far as I can tell that's largely because of older observational health studies on purporting to show a positive effect from moderate wine consumption which has disappeared in more recent studies that did a better job controlling for confounding factors (like many people who don't drink at all being former alcoholics or having other health issues) which have shown that any alcohol consumption is harmful.

I wasn’t thinking wine.

More like Ouzo in Greece.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouzo#:~:text=Ouzo%2520(Greek%2....