Often times, health advice falls into the "What do we make of it?" column. This can be especially true when it involves drugs such as alcohol and caffeine where people have predetermined biases or agendas.

So here's a potentially inflammatory article from the L.A. Times discussing a U.K. study considered to be "the largest and most rigorous...on low levels of alcohol or caffeine" during pregnancy. The first nine words of the title clearly state "Pregnancy has room for a little wine or beer" and goes on to point out that though children of women who drank heavily during pregnancy had the most problems, children of women who were "light drinkers" during pregnancy actually had fewer behavioral or cognitive problems by age three than children of women who abstained. [Important to note: Light drinking was defined as "not more than two drinks (a 4-fluid-ounce glass of wine or 10 fluid ounces of weak beer) on a single occasion and not more than two occasions per week."]




An article in the New Scientist on the same study more explicitly lays out that the "advantageous" side of drinking while pregnant is possibly due to social factors, not the alcohol itself. "Light drinkers are far more likely to be in professional or managerial professions, have higher incomes and higher levels of qualification compared with abstainers and heavy drinkers," lead author Yvonne Kelly is quoted as saying. Still, New Scientist states that "not even clever statistical analysis could remove this influence from the data."

I'm sure many readers will grab their big rubber "Slippery Slope" stamp to brand this story bad advice, but -- and feel free to call me an idealist -- I think it simply plays into two of the oldest health tenants in the book: everything in moderation and happy people are healthy people.

But on that note, let the angry emails fly! [And read more to find out about possible negative effects of caffeine.]