Do you know? Beer can be a better pain reliever than pain killers or paracetamol

As if you needed another reason to grab a cold one, a new study suggests having a few beers relieves your pain better than going over the counter for painkillers.

The study, led by Dr. Trevor Thompson from the University of Greenwich, UK, found that raising your blood alcohol content to about three or four beers deep, elevates your pain threshold significantly. This was according to an analysis of 18 different studies looking at the effect of different dosages of alcohol on the response to pain.

Based on the research, Dr. Thompson says alcohol is an effective pain reliever that “delivers clinically-relevant reductions in ratings of pain intensity,” which probably isn’t too surprising if you’ve ever been in a bar fight or taken a drunken tumble. Not much hurts when you've gone over the moon in alcohol. What is surprising, however, is that the pain relieving power of alcohol was actually shown to be more powerful than paracetamol.

Now, this doesn’t mean you should drench yourself with beer every time you have a headache, but it does highlight an oft-overlooked positive aspect of alcohol consumption. Of course, if you drink too much, you’re really just postponing pain until the next morning.