E4: Prof. David Nutt: Drink: The new science of alcohol and your health

We sat with Professor David Nutt to discuss his book Drink: The New Science of Alcohol and Your Health. Professor Nutt, is the director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit in the Division of Brain Sciences at the Imperial College London, where he studies the effects of substances in our brains. He is also the Chair of DrugScience (formally the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs) and President of the European Brain Council.

The book was quite an interesting read. It gives us a compendious study outlining the facts and risks behind alcohol consumption and overindulgence. A habit deeply ingrained in our society for millennia, and a common part of most of our social conventions.

The book stays true to the facts and avoids sugar coating its position, when it lays out its thesis: “no level of alcohol is safe”. And it does this effectively by focusing first on the science.

The book covers the step by step process of drinking from the moment we take the first sip, and our brains seal the connection with alcohol by associating that bitter unpleasant taste with how good it makes us feel, to the after effects we experience when coming out of it during a hangover and the health issues associated with its abuse.