According to government advisors, a binge session involves drinking at least double the recommended limit – so that’s women consuming six or more standard units of alcohol in a single day, and men eight or more . I bet that’s scared you. Six standard units is two large glasses, not the amount normally associated with mooning in city centres. So go easy this Christmas, and pace yourself. You already know that excessive alcohol consumption is inadvisable, whatever the time of year. And on top of the numerous health issues, just the thought of a horrible hangover should be enough to put you off.

Despite the temporary high you might briefly experience on a binge, alcohol is a depressant, and not just because you wake up with a vague memory of having made a total fool of yourself. It profoundly affects the central nervous system interfering with neurotransmitters, especially serotonin. The result can be fatigue and poor cognitive function.

As well as disrupting neurotransmitters, alcohol also leads to fatigue by causing you to fall asleep the ‘wrong’ way. After too much drink, you are prone to fall quickly into a deep sleep, by-passing the first stage of sleep known as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. As the alcohol wears off you come out of deep sleep, and quite possibly wake up too. This is usually in the middle of the night, unfortunately. Without the usual six to seven cycles of REM sleep, you will not wake feeling refreshed. Instead, you’ll feel tired and sluggish.

The symptoms of a hangover are believed to be the consequence of the effect of acetaldehyde, produced from ethanol, and dehydration, which causes shrinkage of brain cells. Humankind has been looking for a cure for the awful malaise which is a hangover for as long as we’ve been imbibing. I am often asked to recommend a hangover cure. I can’t, partly because I’m not given to peddling magic bullets but also because there aren’t any. In 2005 the British Medical Journal published an examination of all the serious trials of hangover remedies, both pharmaceutical and natural, including borage, artichoke and prickly pear. Sadly, no evidence of any effectiveness was found. Prevention is the only cure, in this case. Here’s what you can do:

• Drink plenty of water before, during and after consuming alcohol.

• Don’t drink on an empty stomach – the effect is too swift for any damage limitation.

• Stick to clear drinks (coloured drinks contain chemicals called congeners which can worsen the symptoms of a hangover).

• Stop drinking alcohol several hours before going to bed, to give your liver time to process the alcohol and lessen the symptoms in the morning.

Other than that, have a merry old time – without the pain and suffering.

There are so many crises in society today it’s hard to know which one to fret about most. One that really intrigues me at the moment is the furore over changes to the state pension age, which is due to increase to 67 between 2026 and 2028. Politicians justify this extension of misery with the rather worn refrain ‘we are living longer than ever.’ I’m starting to think that longevity is a crisis in itself.

No one challenges this assertion, and why would anyone? Statistics do indeed support this claim. In August 2011 the Department for Work and Pensions released a report which detailed how life expectancy has rocketed. According to the data, which include predictions made by the Office for National Statistics, twenty year-olds today are twice as likely as their parents to reach the age of 100 – and three times more likely than their grandparents. According to these predictions, by 2066 there will be more than half a million people in the UK aged 100 or more. What with so many people getting to be so old, the Department for Work and Pensions is clearly worried about having so many folk not working but claiming a pension.

There’s a great big hole in the logic of these predictions. Those making them, over at the Office for National Statistics, might want to set up some cross-departmental meetings with their colleagues in the data on chronic diseases section. Today’s elders, on which these stats are based, were born in the 1920s to 1940s. Unlike so many of today’s more youthful generation, they were not reared on a diet of crisps, sugary biscuits, fizzy drinks, or any other heinous processed junk. They ate, in the main, plain, simple but natural food – meat and veg. They were physically active and not given to overeating, as there generally wasn’t enough to overeat. You simply cannot extrapolate data from today’s elderly population and apply it to people born in the 1980s onwards, when junk food became widely available and obesity common. Other predictions may be more relevant: it is also predicted, by the National Heart Forum, that by 2020, 41% of men and 36% of women aged 20-65 will be obese. Obese people do not go on to celebrate their 100^th birthdays. They do not go on to enjoy a long and happy retirement. Instead, they go on to develop heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer.

Whilst I’m on a doomsday roll, I might add that other predictions are looking equally as dire. Those same children reared on a fast-food diet have gone on to become parents now themselves. And this much we know: what a mother eats directly affects the health of her child – not just for nine months in the womb but for the rest of that child’s life. This observation was first made by Professor David Barker in what is now famously known as the Barker hypothesis. Heart disease and diabetes are two conditions which may result from poor nutrition in the womb.

The problem of how the Government is going to pay an ageing population a reasonable pension may have already, tragically, solved itself.