(PCM) Got a beer gut? If you’re trying to cut back on the beer, you may want to pay special attention to the type of glass you’re drinking out of, particularly curved glasses.
A new study from the University of Bristol, in England, found that people drink beer more rapidly from curved “beer flutes” compared to straight-sided glasses. In fact, they drink it twice as fast! Researchers asked 160 social drinkers aged 18 to 40 to drink either lager or soda from a straight-sides glass or a curved beer glass. The beer drinkers drank twice as slow from the straight-sided glass as when they drank from the beer glass. There was no difference, however, with soda drinkers.
This suggests that the curved glass makes it harder for drinkers to determine how much they’ve guzzled down, say study researchers. A second experiment had participants look at pictures of the two glasses with different levels of liquid in them. When they tried to determine whether they were more or less than half full, they were way more off with their estimates when it came to the curved glasses.
“People often talk of ‘pacing themselves’ when drinking alcohol as a means of controlling levels of drunkenness, and I think the important point to take from our research is that the ability to pace effectively may be compromised when drinking from certain types of glasses,” said lead researcher Dr. Angela Atwood.
Bottom line: If you want to cut back on the beer, pace yourself with straight-sided glasses or stick to a bottle!
More:
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Moderate Drinking May Protect Against Dementia, Alzheimer’s