Try Alcohol?
Alcohol increases insulin sensitivity (which is good). Alcohol consumption later in life is correlated with childhood intelligence. Alcohol leads to more risk-taking behavior even after sobering up. Alcohol (even heavy drinking) makes old people live longer. It’s a shame alcohol severely impairs (short term only, as far as I know) physical and mental coordination, and causes worse sleep. Otherwise it seems pretty nice. On the other hand, I’ve heard that it causes small amounts of damage to brain cells (this may be “reefer madness” scare stories from church ladies), and for certain declines in intelligence are often caused by an accumulation of small amounts of damage (that aren’t easy to observe, since the brain reroutes around damage - in extreme cases, massive damage from stroke or hemispherectomy can be overcome simply by learning the missing skills using new brain regions). The evidence I see of harms from heavy alcohol use is mostly about thiamine deficiency (easily corrected) and liver disease (which allows poisons to reach and harm brain cells). Additionally, if alcohol use is heavy enough to cause withdrawal, then the brain becomes very excitable, and therefore can be severely damaged by Excitotoxicity.
By electrolyte disturbances, I assume they mean that you pee a lot and therefore in drinking more water might end up with the wrong concentrations of salts etc. Apparently alcohol is carcinogenic (3.5% of cancers are due to alcohol)[142], but since alcohol consumption is so widespread, I’m not sure exactly how carcinogenic 1 drink/day is. It’s difficult to judge the actual harms of alcohol due to the religious crazies with a stake in it (including AA). I’ve only related what seems plausible; there are dozens of other claims on Wikipedia.
Alcohol related brain damage is due to not also the direct toxic effects of alcohol; alcohol withdrawal, nutritional deficiency, electrolyte disturbances, and liver damage are also believed to contribute to alcohol related brain damage.[57]
By electrolyte disturbances, I assume they mean that you pee a lot and therefore in drinking more water might end up with the wrong concentrations of salts etc. Apparently alcohol is carcinogenic (3.5% of cancers are due to alcohol)[142], but since alcohol consumption is so widespread, I’m not sure exactly how carcinogenic 1 drink/day is. It’s difficult to judge the actual harms of alcohol due to the religious crazies with a stake in it (including AA). I’ve only related what seems plausible; there are dozens of other claims on Wikipedia.