Writing

Hey...

So this is why all of you keep coming around here...

A study of 7,000 people in their early 20s, 40s and 60s found that those who drank within safe limits had better verbal skills, memory and speed of thinking than those at the extremes of the drinking spectrum. The safe consumption level was considered to be 14 to 28 standard drinks a week for a man and seven to 14 for a woman.

Questions ranged from verbal reasoning problems to tests of short-term memory. Surprisingly, perhaps, teetotallers were twice as likely as occasional drinkers to achieve the lowest scores.

Bryan Rodgers, from ANU's Centre for Mental Health Research, said moderate drinkers not only performed the best, but also seemed to be the healthiest. "This does not necessarily show moderate alcohol use is good for our brains - there may be other reasons we haven't measured to explain the poor performance of non-drinkers," Dr Rodgers said.

Time for some more poetry:

Twenty-eight drinks a week
That can make you really think!
Putting those four beers away
Makes for better word play!
Better poems, better thought,
Better health is thereby bought!
A merry life to you and me!
A drink right now, and then three!
Yep, that's fine stuff. I'm going to bet that a "standard drink" in Australia is a pint, too, not just one of those wee 12-once cans we use around here.

UPDATE: More beer-related poetry at Cassandra's.