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Wetherspoon’s chairman, Tim Martin, encourages people to drink more alcohol for a longer life. At 70, the founder of the pub chain claims that the world’s longest-lived populations consume alcohol, referencing Jeanne Calment of France, who lived to be 122 and reportedly drank daily.
Recently knighted in the 2024 New Year Honours, Martin advises skepticism towards official health guidelines. He remarked, “There are claims that even one drink is harmful. To me, this resembles another misleading ‘consensus’ among health professionals who lack impartiality.”
Martin suggests caution when accepting ‘consensus’ opinions on health topics. He points out that, historically, much government-endorsed health advice in the past 50 to 60 years has proven wrong. For a long time, cheese, eggs, and whole milk were mistakenly seen as dangerous by a largely convinced medical community.
He notes that most of that advice is now outdated. Currently, drinks like Doom Bar or Ruddles beer, or a glass of sauvignon blanc, are targeted by health advocates. Martin acknowledges Wetherspoon’s conflict of interest in this debate and asks for consideration of his viewpoint with some skepticism.
Martin observes that the most long-lived populations often enjoy alcoholic drinks. Surprisingly, they also tend to consume more salt than average. Countries like Australia, Ireland, and Sweden, known for their high life expectancy, are also known for heavy drinking.
Even the Japanese, praised for their healthy eating habits, enjoy a drink. Martin questions how health experts explain the fact that these long-living nations are frequent drinkers, just as many centenarians are known to enjoy alcohol.
“The longest-ever-lived human being, whose age has been officially verified, was Jeanne Calment of Arles, France. Jeanne died at 122, having lived about five years longer than anyone else, before or since – while apparently enjoying a ‘port wine’ with her meals, having given up smoking at 117.
“Jeanne must have been designed specifically to undermine every main theme of popular health advice. Non-drinking nations do not feature in the top-10 list, although, to be fair, factors such as relative wealth, efficiency of health systems and so on, are also important.
“History suggests that governments and medics, with the best of intentions, often seem to get dietary advice wrong. As in so many areas where expert opinions are concerned, we need to consider the evidence and make up our own mind.”
The NHS website describes alcohol misuse drinking “in a way that’s harmful, or when you’re dependent on alcohol”. It suggests keeping health risks from alcohol to a low level by not regularly drinking more than 14 units a week.
Persistent alcohol misuse increases your risk of serious health conditions, including heart disease, stroke, liver disease, liver cancer, bowel cancer, mouth cancer, breast cancer, pancreatitis, damage to the brain and other serious conditions, according to health experts.
