Mercury up? Alcohol, down!

Man, it’s hot - nearly 100 degrees here in New Jersey today, and possibly even hotter where you are. And when you’re really parched there’s nothing more satisfying and healthy than cool water. But once you’ve fully hydrated your body, alcoholic beverages, drunk in moderate quantities, actually cool the body more efficiently than just plain water can…

I’m sure that no one has forgotten that beer and wine contain alcohol. And surely we all know the various effects that alcoholic beverages can have on the human body depending on the body in question, the beverage consumed, the amount of said beverage, etc. So aside from the more apparent and well documented effects of euphoria, drunkenness, and hangover, alcohol consumption has some lesser known, and less “visible” effects on the body. One of these is blood thinning. Drinking an alcoholic beverage actually has the effect of reducing the viscosity of the blood which has a mild overall cooling effect on the human body. Further, alcohol is also a vasodilator (a substance that causes the expansion of blood vessels), so as the relative volume of every blood vessel in the body expands slightly, this marginally but clearly increases their surface areas, thereby allowing that much more efficient wicking of heat away from the body. Finally, alcohol is not only metabolized and excreted via the urine but via the sweat glands as well, so the higher levels of alcohol (which evaporates more quickly and readily) in the the sweat also helps to cool the body.

So if all of these cooling effects are directly and proportionally related to the level of alcohol in a beverage, why not unscrew the governor and drink tumblers-full of vodka or even pure grain alcohol? Well, aside from the rapid and profound inebriation this would bestow on the subject, one countervailing action to the cooling effects that alcohol carries is dehydration. Basically, drinking too much alcohol in very hot weather erases all of the substance’s cooling effects by markedly dehydrating the drinker’s body. And clearly since water management is mother nature’s main cooling mechanism for the human body, neutralizing it is just stealing from Peter to pay Paul at best.

So here’s my drinky R/x for scorching Summer weather: First and foremost, drink plenty of water. But, if you want to drink alcoholic beverages stick with “light” things - beer, vinho verde, Txakoli, Prosecco, Sekt, dryish German rieslings, etc. Trying to keep the alcohol levels to 12%, or less is best. If you choose the right wine or beer, and you respect reasonable recommendations for quantities to be consumed, wine can play a small but notable role in keeping you cool in extremely hot weather.

TOM CIOCCO