It’s been a bad week for booze lovers. An Oxford study estimated that in 2005, alcohol caused over 30 000 UK deaths, costing the NHS over £3 billion. 6% of deaths and 10% of all “ill-health” (as measured by "disability-adjusted life years”) are caused by alcohol. To put it in context, the same researchers showed last month that smoking caused 19% of all deaths and 12% of ill health, costing over the NHS £5 billion per year.

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When I learned about evidence-based medicine (EBM) as an undergraduate, I remember thinking that there were just too many crucial health questions waiting to be answered. There was not enough time for EBM to solve the more banal problems of daily life. How wrong I was.

Last week, the British press reported on a topic close to the hearts of millions of men seeking a mate after an evening of drinking [1, 2]. Does alcohol interfere with perception of beauty? The term, "beer goggles", has been used to describe the phenomenon of "alcohol myopia" since the early 1990s. Do “beer goggles” exist? The study apparently showed that there was no evidence for beer goggles and suggested that “the effect of "beer goggles" should not be used as an excuse for men getting a woman's age wrong”.

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