Yep. The old meme that “moderate drinking is better than no drinking at all” needs to die: these studies included people who didn’t drink for medical reasons, skewing the average health of the nondrinking cohort down.
What do you make of studies such as this? Their baseline was strictly lifetime abstainers, absolutely no people who stopped drinking for medical reasons. Still, moderate drinking results in lower all-cause mortality.
It might be that people with worse health tend to abstain from alcohol more often because they feel worse after consuming it. Or that some substances consumed with alcohol, like all other compounds present in wine except for alcohol might have some protective function when consumed regularly.
There are way more possible explanations better than "some amount of ethyl alcohol is actually a little bit beneficial".
Ethyl alcohol may cause harm to the body, but these findings do suggest that the total effect on health is positive.
Interestingly, (wrt. https://www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacc.2017.06.054) the 15 drink-a-week threshold that's often quoted as a kind of limit to safe drinking puts your all-cause-mortality risk right at that of lifetime teetotalers. The utilitarian implication is that, after 15 drinks a week, you really are causing harm relative to not drinking at all. So its costs outweigh any benefits. But that implies that there are benefits. These may be very subtle.
Perhaps alcohol is part of a balanced diet. It arises during digestion. You find it in ripe fruit, a significant part of many primate diets. It also appears to be part of the typical diet in many of the regions of the world that have the highest life expectancy. Would they live even longer if they could shake the habit? Maybe we could study that genetically. Are these cultures just healthier for other reasons, and thus more tolerant of alcohol? It would be like the entire society has shifted along the curve shown here https://www.jacc.org/cms/asset/f6fb55ac-3d9d-4e40-8128-ec785....
It’s certainly interesting. My initial reaction is that “lifetime abstainers” is still a sufficiently distinct group from the continuum of moderate to heavy drinkers so there might be other confounders. I wonder if a study like that exists? I personally know only a handful of people who never drink, and it’s either for religious reasons or, in one case, the person just likes to put themselves at odds with society in various ways, including never drinking.
Really? I'm surprised it's such high fraction. I always imagined nearly everybody drinks and very occasional drinkers like me and non-drinkers are a minority.
> Globally, an estimated 741 300 (95% UI 558 500–951 200), or 4.1% (3.1–5.3), of all new cases of cancer in 2020 were attributable to alcohol consumption. Males accounted for 568 700 (76.7%; 95% UI 422 500–731 100) of total alcohol-attributable cancer cases, and cancers of the oesophagus (189 700 cases [110 900–274 600]), liver (154 700 cases [43 700–281 500]), and breast (98 300 cases [68 200–130 500]) contributed the most cases.
So ~4 out of 100 cancer cases can be attributed to alcohol consumption. I'm not sure if that's a _ton_ or how to contextualize it, but that seems like the more appropriate framing.
> There are a few biological pathways that lead from alcohol consumption to a cancer diagnosis, according to the study. Ethanol, the form of alcohol present in beer, wine and liquor, breaks down to form a known carcinogen called acetaldehyde, which damages DNA and interferes with cells' ability to repair the damage.
> Alcohol can also increase levels of hormones, including estrogen. Hormones signal cells to grow and divide. With more cell division, there are more opportunities for cancer to develop. Alcohol also reduces the body's ability to absorb certain cancer-protective nutrients, including vitamins A, C, D, E and folate.
> What's more, the combination of drinking and smoking might indirectly increase the risk of cancer, with alcohol acting as a kind of solvent for the carcinogenic chemicals in tobacco.
Well one other way to frame it would be that 96% of the people who got cancer were not regular drinkers.
When you consider how many people are regular drinkers (and how low the bar is set - only 2 drinks per day) vs how many people get cancer (39.5%), then if only 4% of cancer occurred in regular drinkers, then you would naturally draw the conclusion that regular drinking appears to prevent cancer.
But that goes against the narrative that they're selling.
True, that's just a way to question it from a different angle and try to understand it. But if they don't address that angle, then it doesn't really say much.
The error you are making is that the authors are calculating risk. That is, very broadly, the chance of getting cancer goes up if you drink. The authors do not claim that drinking == cancer. That is ridiculous and would rightly be ignored by cancer researchers.
Lots of people drink and smoke and will not ever get cancer. The authors are not disputing this. They do however suggest that drinking might increase your risk of getting cancer.
If humans were biologically immortal, they would likely have immune systems strong enough that cancer would be rare.
Species such as whales and elephants, who have a lot more cells than humans do, have much stronger anti-cancer mechanisms than humans and rarely get cancer.
Yeah, cells have to replicate. And whenever they do, there's a chance of mutation. And whenever that happens, there's a chance it will be malignant.
Multiply up enough of those chances over time, and the limit approaches a 100% chance. It's almost surprising that so few people die of cancer.
Of course, it's always happening, and our bodies are fighting it off all the time. But each time they try, there's a chance that it won't be effective. So it still over time approaches 100%, if something else doesn't get you first.
> Our study highlights the contribution of even relatively low levels of alcohol to the risk of new cancer cases,
"relatively" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. I'm always amazed when filling out health surveys where it considers one alcoholic drink every single day a "low level".
Had friends that had to have 4-6 beers to chill out every night and had been doing that for 20 years. I feel fucking terrible the day after drinking a six-pack; I can't imagine what that does to the body (a lot of the same stuff as sugar). You're slowly killing yourself. Having not known a grandfather due to alcoholism (don't be so hard on the boomers, their fuckups are the fuckups of a generation that went through ww2), and slowly realized why my father is the way he is....it's kind of fucking terrifying.
I don't recall if this was precovid or postcovid, but there was a 60 minutes where they were talking about the impact that understanding the genome has had on health research, but specifically curing some cancers and longevity. They had a harvard prof on there that firmly believed that within 7 years that we'll be seeing real advances (that the public will have access to) on that.
7 years is nothing. You know it's not going to take 7 years, it's going to take 25, but stop pickling yourselves so you can make it that far. I have 45 year old friends that act like they are going to die tomorrow.
This is the 60 minutes in question. Keep in mind academic timelines. It's longer than seven years, money quote, among other interesting stuff:
> Scott Pelley: What's the time horizon on age reversal in humans?
George Church: That's in clinical trials right now in dogs. And so, that veterinary product might be a couple years away and then that takes another ten years to get through the human clinical trials.
(don't be so hard on the boomers, their fuckups are the fuckups of a generation that went through ww2)
Pretty sure the boomers are the ones that came after WW2, the aforementioned "boom" of their namesake being progeny of those that didn't die during the blitz, Normandy, Stalingrad, and everywhere in between.
That is a six pack a week? Yeah, that seems pretty low to me. You can certainly go lower than that, without not drinking at all, but you can also go much higher without it having any noticeable effect on your life and without being drunk at any point:
One beer to celebrate sitting in your garden at the end of the work day, one glass of wine at dinner, one scotch before bed.
Congratulations, if you do that every single day, that makes you a heavy drinker. Drinking alcohol every single day is already one red flag, and drinking more than one "drink" (one small bottle of beer, one glass of wine or one small glass of whisky/vodka/etc.) per day is a second red flag. Of course you can get much worse than that, but it will still negatively impact your health long-term.
Well, it's not so clear cut. If you live your life according to a Mediterranean lifestyle and drink your glass of wine each day (mostly in a social setting, which is especially important when you grow older), you will be healthier than most other people.
I mean, you could say the same about riding a motorcycle. Riding a motorcycle only slightly increases your risk of dying in a horrible traffic accident, but for a lot of people the risk is big enough that they stop riding once they have kids.
I don't know the actual stats, but the danger of motorcycle riding is something that you are constantly aware of when on a bike.
You're constantly scanning for that one car that won't see you and plow into the side of you, and if you're in the hills a lapse in concentration or patch of gravel can throw you off.
What I mean by that is it's much easier to identify it as a high risk activity compared to alcohol or cigarettes since the risk is an in your face might end you today, rather than an abstract idea of this will hurt you in the long run
People are aware of motorcycle risks upfront: They go fast. Wrecks are spectacular, and you don't go far to meet someone that has been affected by such an accident. You have safety gear, after all.
Alcohol isn't like that. Alcohol is more akin to something like going up stairs or showering or heck, a little similar to smoking. None of these things seem all that dangerous while you do them. But as it turns out, showers are pretty dangerous. Stairs make for horrible accidents, which is why it is so important to have the angle and height right (and even). Smoking, at first, does't seem like it'll give you cancer in 30 years, and may neve "feel" dangerous if you do it sporadically.
And the poster is correct: It doesn't matter much if you have a 3% more chance of dying of something if your chances are properly low in the first place - even after the increase, your chances are still low.
But that's the point entirely. Showers and going up stairs are everyday activities: Most of us know someone that's been hurt on stairs or in the shower: Shower falls cause lots of injuries every year.
The risks become overlooked because of familiarity and it makes it easier to minimize the risks. It doesn't help that the downsides often aren't immediate: It takes some years to develop disease from it, after all. In general, it takes hours for you to wind up in the hospital or harm someone else - but most of the time, much like showering or walking up the stairs, nothing of note happens.
Possibky zero. Your body produces plenty of sugars even if you don’t eat any, because your brain and other parts need them to function. What’s unclear to me is how much sugar cancers need to thrive and if the baseline your body naturally produces isn’t already above that line.
I know it’s a typo, and it doesn’t invalidate anything you wrote; but it’s also the French word for "fish", which makes the whole thing quite hilarious to read.
This is a very uneducated comment, considering available research. While some doubt can be cast on the J-shaped curve, we have a lot of evidence for all-cause mortality either decreasing or at least not increasing with low levels of consumption.
Is that evidence from industry funded studies, though?
Industry funded studies told us smoking was safe for a long time. In the case of alcohol we absolutely know that high doses are very dangerous. There are lies, damn lies, and statistics, after all.
Maybe there's a safe dose of alcohol. Maybe the risk of low doses is small enough to be accepted. But we've been lied to buy poison vendors enough times that I'll take any of their proclamations of safety with a mountain of salt.
While the grape juice is super tasty, this absolutely not meaningful comparison. For one, it is not so healthy to drink sugary stuff all too often.
For the other it is not replacement in any meaningful sense. The equivalent amount wont stop your thirst and one cup of grapefruit juice feels like you have drunk nothing.
There’s a chart we were shown in Med school with DALYs of different drugs and while alcohol had a big negative side it also had a positive side which was the only one
No, it’s very definitely a depressant. Some might get ecstatic momentarily, but they’re likely to be crying within minutes, or maybe even trying to commit murder or rape — one of the worse side effects of alcohol is criminal behavior.
“Therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery. It makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.”
The wisdom of ages, or if you prefer,
“Robbery and violent crimes often involve alcohol use, and there is a positive correlation between such crimes and alcohol use. 15% of robberies, 63% of intimate partner violence incidents, 37% of sexual assaults, 45-46% of physical assaults and 40-45% of homicides in the United States involved use of alcohol.”
So not just merriment and conviviality. There’s a flip side.
Just plain wrong. Sugar is also "poison", right? For every study that shows a negative effect from wine, you can find one that shows a benefit to mortality. Leave your vendetta against alcohol out of this - epidemiological studies in this area are very low quality and don't show causation in any way.
Yes, sugar is basically poison, especially the large quantities of processed sugars that we regularly comsume. Cutting out candy, soda, sugar-in-coffee, etc. can bring a lot of very noticeable benefits if you were consuming them every day.
Part of the harm caused by alcohol comes from the way that your body metabolizes it...into sugars. The whole "a glass of red wine with dinner is heart-healthy" thing has also been pretty thoroughly debunked.
It's not just the glass of red wine for resveratrol. There are epidemiological pointers to a reduction in risk of heart disease from drinking wine, and these links are generally of the same "quality" as these cancer-alcohol studies. That is to say, they're all bad quality, but if you're going to tout the "risks" you can't ignore the "benefits".
There are a lot of alcohol apologists in this thread. Its one of the most dangerous drugs in humanity and we have people claiming it can be beneficial under the right circumstances.
Even if that were true, it does orders of magnitude more harm than good, and should be considered a poison.
We absolutely do not want to propagate the idea that it can be heathy if consumed responsibly.
My situation is almost certainly different from yours. I'm 64, retired, and a cancer survivor. I'm not worried in the least about having an extra drink or two. Life is to be lived and enjoyed.
If I give that up, how much extra lifespan should I expect on average? A week? A month? A year?
I'm not saying you shouldn't drink. It's your body, do whatever you want! Most enjoyable things have some level of risk.
I'm just saying that there is a risk, and people should be aware of that fact.
Someone out there is going to be unlucky and get colon cancer from their daily glass of wine. And they probably think it's just bad luck, it can't be from alcohol because they drink just one glass a day.
(Reminds me of a relative who likes talking about how his daily glass of red wine made him live to 90. I think it's the successful chemo treatment for his throat cancer that made him live to 90, but I'm not a doctor)
Back in 1999 when I was briefly at the University of Chicago I stayed at the International House, which is a large gothic building with a tower and probably a hundred rooms, and it included a formal library. In this library I found a thick paper-covered volume, entitled something like “Proceedings of the 51st Conference of the International Society of Cardiovascular Surgeons”. Curiously flipping through it, and towards the end of the book, amongst all these other scholarly papers on various aspects of the cardiovascular profession, there was a very unique and curious poem taking like 3-4 pages, entitled “Hiawatha’s Lipid Lowering Drug”. It was nearly impossible to read because it was 3-4 pages of dense, single spaced lines of pure chemical and chemistry lingo, “sterols and etherols, thrombotamates and buyterates...” All I can remember was just a few main impressions and one quote. My main impression was that the poem was written by one of the conference cardiovascular surgeons, after the conference nice and buzzed in his hotel room if not plain drunk. It was also obviously written by a doctor/scientist who knew all the chemistry and terms around lipids and lipid removal. It was also fairly deducable without understanding the terms involved that he was a great advocate of alcohol keeping the heart going through dissolving fat, cholesterol and lipid buildup in the arteries and blood vessels. I also remember the last line of the poem, which was quite impressive after 3-4 pages of recitation of body chemistry and chemicals. The last line was this: “So thought Hiawatha as he staggered from this Congress”.
The biggest difference is if alcohol is part of your routine or just for special occasions.
If it's part of your routine you might have a glass or two of wine with dinner most nights. Or a couple of pints in the pub after work. Maybe you never really get drunk, but you're drinking a lot of alcohol.
I used to drink pretty infrequently. Sure, I'd have a six pack a party every now and then but most of the time I was busy with other things.
Now that there's not so many 'other things' to do I do find myself drinking more and more regularly.
Since we mostly don't really understand what cancer actually is, it's a bit of a stretch to break down percent supposedly caused by alcohol. I can readily think of other possible reasons for a correlation.
Only if you are self-treating depression. Though these days there are drugs for depression that can dramatically increase the odds you will quit smoking.
This is not where I was heading at. We have no simple way to assert that smoking causes lung cancer: no RCT is available for that. So we are left with the same level of evidence that we have for alcohol, which is observational studies. That knee jerk reaction that observational studies can't give us a relatively high level of confidence is why I mentioned the case of tobacco: if you really believe that, you should also disdain the case against smoking.
I really believe that we don't fully understand what cancer is. I really believe that after taking care of a loved one post mastectomy. I really believe that after listening to a relative who worked at the CDC and had cancer multiple times bitch about how most studies are bullshit and there's very little new in cancer research.
I really believe that after another relative of mine caused two cancer clinics to change their practices.
I really believe that after listening to the tales of a relative be patient zero in a cancer study.
And on and on.
Cancer runs rampant in my family. I've had multiple relatives who have had it, some multiple times.
Your opinions about my opinions not withstanding, I will continue to believe what makes sense to me.
Maybe that's sensible, maybe it isn't (how close are 'what an oncologist thinks' and 'what a layperson believes an oncologist thinks'?).
Commenting on the internet "I'm more virtuous than you because I dismiss your experience without caring what it is" isn't particularly sensible, it's tribal signalling "I'm in the science tribe not the conspiracy-alternative-health-woo tribe". Isn't it?
Empirical evidence may not be there, what about theoretical formulation of the mechanism by which smoking affects the lung? Shouldn't we able to explain it only on the basis of theory?
Not really because smoking produces hundreds of not thousands of compounds that make it practically impossible to trace the metabolic path of all of these compounds in the human body from just theory alone
Yeah, I get that. And I stand by what I said and I don't understand why it's at all controversial.
Some cancers are known to be caused by viruses. Maybe people drink because they caught a virus that causes cancer, either to self medicate or because the virus makes them crave alcohol.
While a randomized controlled trial is the golden standard when it comes to science, ones about cancer can be prohibitively expensive due to the durations involved.
Who will accept a researcher-imposed dietary restriction for years? Who will follow it without requiring supervision?
These cohort studies are the next best thing. The correlation is with alcohol consumption 10 years earlier, and they looked at the changes in countries' alcohol consumption.
That's fine. As long as you state clearly it's correlation and not proven causation and we don't know the exact mechanism and yadda.
I'm trying to walk away from a completely ridiculous pile on from an excessive number of people here. This is not a productive conversation at all and I have no idea why it went so wildly sideways.
Well that's not a very real distinction. No observational study can ever claim to prove causation at most it can provide data that supports causation is highly likely. The conclusion and how it's presented will naturally be in terms of likelihoods of some outcomes based on certain assumptions — which is exactly how this research is presented.
I believe people reacted because you downplayed the importance of the study (at least I did). Just because it doesn't outright prove causation, doesn't mean we should not pay attention.
In the past decades, public health suffered immensely due to "benefit of the doubt" given to smoking.
Cigarette companies used the same arguments as you: “Sure there are statistics associating lung cancer and cigarettes. There are statistics associating lung cancer with divorce, and even with lack of sleep. But no scientist has produced clinical or biological proof that cigarettes cause the diseases they are accused of causing.”
> we mostly don't really understand what cancer actually is
> it's a bit of a stretch to break down percent supposedly caused by alcohol
eh, I think we know quite a lot about cancers and quite a lot about alcohol's effects on the human body. The fact that it is complex doesn't mean that we don't understand it at all.
I remember how there was that study about how "alcohol is good for you" because the "mortality vs. alcohol consumption" was a slight bathtub curve at the low end.
They completely forgot that many people who don't drink do so because of other confounding health complications that may increase mortality.
Talk about not controlling for variables, yeesh :|
My sister works as a nurse in a geriatric department her attitude is “if I make it to 70 I’m going to start smoking”. She’s seen plenty of people with healthy bodies and destroyed minds to know she’s rather avoid that kind of fate.
No kids/grandkids for me so I don't see much value in old age.
I have to live now and only have 15-20 good years left. Once that time comes it is time to party. Cigars, weed and rum. A broken down physical body with an even more broken down mind is a fate worse than death to me.
this is the epitome of the protestant promise land, gas-lighting with bullshit for white ppl reasons. the more they believe their own bullshit, the more of them that die, and that's not a bad thing
- Does the study exclude the possibility of other factors causing the increase in cases in 2020? For example, potential reduction in exercise and exposure to sunlight?
- How valid is the assumption "assuming a 10-year latency period between alcohol consumption and cancer diagnosis"?
- Why would not one attempt to find correlation between yearly reported cases (or PAF if applicable) and yearly alcohol consumption instead? As it stands, some points in the discussion read like assertions. One example is this:
> Our estimated global PAF was lower than the previous global estimates of 5·5% of cancer cases in 2012, 4·8% of cancer deaths in 2016, and 4·9% of cancer deaths in 2019. This difference could be due to genuine decreases in consumption of alcohol in several world regions, such as in southern Europe and central and eastern Europe, as Shield and colleagues reported a 5·5% decrease in the global alcohol-attributable age-standardised rate of death from cancer between 2000 and 2016.
And this:
> On the other end of the spectrum, alcohol consumption in central and eastern Europe has historically outranked that of other world regions, but has decreased in recent years, whereas increases in alcohol consumption, linked with countries' economic development, are projected in Asian countries such as China and India.
The statements above seem to be at odds with each other according to the number of alcohol-attributed cases from each country in the appendix.[2]
> Even moderate drinking, two or fewer drinks a day, accounted for an estimated 14%, or 103,000 cases, of alcohol-related cancers, according to the study.
This is not a helpful statistic because it doesn't say what percent of people are in this category. I skimmed the actual paper [1] and it appears that there is no designation below "moderate drinking" so this literally captures everyone who drinks 2 drinks or less per day.
>This is not a helpful statistic because it doesn't say what percent of people are in this category.
Exactly. I came here to ask whether anyone had read the paper carefully enough to say whether this information is actually missing or just absent from the summary.
I get the impression that there is a sort of culture war going on. Some seem to be so keen on stressing that there is no safe level of drinking that they avoid saying anything about where the risk curve really starts to bend upward more steeply, which is what most people will want to know.
Orrrrr could it be that there is lots of money in selling booze, and big players don’t want it banned again in favor of less harmful and/or more beneficial substances?
> I get the impression that there is a sort of culture war going on.
This is absolutely what's happening. Messaging from some official sources is so ideologically driven that they happily publish wrong and misleading information if they think it will further their goal.
The measure has become the target and so ceased to become a good measure.
The entire article is missing the only stat that matters: How does your probability of getting cancer (or better yet, your overall mortality risk) change with alcohol consumption? Such a long article totally devoid of useful information.
Yeah, sounds like I would fall under 'moderate drinker', when I only have about 3-4 drinks per month, and sometimes less than that (I went about eight months last year without drinking any alcohol at all, for example).
It is frustrating that they lump in any amount of alcohol up to 2 drinks per day as moderate which honestly isn't all that moderate. Still another way to read that is that while alcohol represents a real risk to community health resources you can mitigate 86% of the risk by limiting yourself to ONLY 68 gallons (257 liters) of beer this year.
I would not be terribly surprised if most of the issues with moderate drinkers concerned users were on the heavy side of "moderate"
The number I see frequently as the threshold of "heavy drinking" is 15 drinks per week, so I certainly agree that it's not accurate to call 14 drinks per week "moderate".
15 drinks per week is actually the limit here for commercial drivers. If you admit to drinking more than that during your annual/semi-annual DMV physical, you have essentially just admitted to alcoholism and can't keep driving class A/B vehicles unless you enter a substance abuse program.
Because those countries are either under the fiscal control of Big Booze (taxes), or they are under control of criminal enterprises (usually from neighboring country)
Or the culture is such that people regularly use alcohol both for pleasure and to avoid their emotional issues. Real men don’t have emotions, and if you’re feeling them then it’s better to knock back a few glasses then to express them.
Your theory is big booze and government corruption creates a problem of alcohol. Mine is that culturally many people really like to drink as an emotional salve. I didn’t ascribe the entire problem to it, just offering an additional or alternative cause, of which there can and must be more than one.
Throwing around accusations like intellectual dishonesty sorta doesn’t help conversation.
I agree with you that many people like to drink to suppress or bring forth their emotions. This could be generalized: many people like to heavily alter their state of consciousness.
Now, mostly because of Big Booze and government corruption, we are stuck in a system where the only legal way to heavily alter one’s consciousness is alcohol.
Culture revolves around this. Counterculture then naturally involves illegal ways to alter one’s consciousness. Since counterculture exists defined through culture as an avantgarde-like necessity - a forefront of cultural innovation - it is again natural that the makers of mainstream culture are actually counterculturalists. It is also why mainstream art - music, books, movies, TV - contains so many examples of ”promoting” drug use.
It is thus obvious that the legality of alcohol and illegality of drugs are more significant drivers of behaviour than ”alcohol culture”.
We have hundreds of mainstream idols from Willie Nelson to Snoop Dogg openly promoting cannabis use, yet cannabis culture is literally cracked down on wherever it is illegal.
Certainly “because it’s legal” is a decent argument, but culture does a lot more than decide which recreational drugs are in or out. Overuse of and dependence on drugs and alcohol vary widely among different cultures regardless of legality.
Were there cultures that didn’t produce as much demand for altered states of consciousness, those might be seen as better addressing the needs of its people (in theory, not making this argument as I’m not a Puritan but just for the sake of conversation).
Different cultures generally get exposed to foreign substances due to imperialism and capitalism, see the opium wars.
It’s obvious that original cultures have their own traditional substances, from fly agaric to psilocybe shrooms to cava to ayahuasca. They would be taken as a part of a prosocial setting, an initiation or a healing ceremony, and the inebriation would be seen as a transformative process: something that enables living fully. Alcohol, on the other hand, tends to only disable and provide a means to escape stress.
What happens to the aforementioned shaman culture once western values and substances are introduced?
I would assume the increase in ego-centric stress drives the population into escape mode, and the imperialist offers alcohol.
and these limits are set arbitrarily and are often even more detrimental. If you know the doc says you can have 14 but not 15, you now have a target to be "ok" when you show up to the doctor.
If the gap between 14 and 15 is linear and not somehow logarithmic then you're telling me that consuming exactly two drinks a day will be fine, but that extra scotch you have on friday makes you an alcoholic. This term is thrown around loosely by people who have never actually met an alcoholic. Even a high functioning "weekend warrior" is noticeable.
The total risk for serious liver damage drinking a 6 pack a day for over 10 years is only 18%. Of these people, around 13% develop into cirrhosis. No one has been able to explain why. For some people, especially women, the effects of alcohol are far more damaging. Much like BMI, population statistics are not as useful as what actually matters. Body mass per unit alcohol consumed. A smaller person drinking 15 drinks a week may develop health problems. A 180 pound male may or may not.
Am I encouraging drinking that heavily because the risk is 18%? No not at all. I am simply stating that these "drink limits" are arbitrary and completely and entirely made up. Mediterraneans, regularly cited for their longevity, consume more than 15 drinks a week on a regular basis.
HN is filled with these pop-sci teetotalers who rag on alcohol but promote the uninhibited abuse of THC and other dangerous mind altering drugs. It's an absurd bizzaro world.
> HN is filled with these pop-sci teetotalers who rag on alcohol but promote the uninhibited abuse of THC and other dangerous mind altering drugs. It's an absurd bizzaro world.
Exactly! People have been drinking for millenia, and while alcohol doesn't make you healthier, it's also clear that drinking "normally" doesn't cause major health issues (unlike, smoking cigarettes for example). Sure, if you drink 2 bottles of wine a day, you're going to have a problem. Not so much with 2 glasses of wine a day.
THC, microdosing and all that other stuff is relatively new and the long-term effecs are not well researched. Shorter term, it's clear that THC can cause issues like schizophrenia, especially with teenagers. I would expect much more long-term negative effects of mind altering drugs, just because they fuck with your brain.
This call to naturalism is absurd. The fact that people are drinking alcohol for millennia is not proof of it being healthy!! That makes no sense!
While I generally agree about arbitrary cutoffs, 2 glasses of wine a day is a good indicator that you have alcohol in your system at least 1/3rd of your life! There are people who don’t get phased by this, but more likely people are just used to it and adapt (much like with coffee)
The concept of a line being arbitrary is a thing but it’s not a crazy line (especially if you’re only drinking every other day that’s 4 glasses a day).
Assuming one unit (10ml) stays in your system for one hour, a full bottle of wine per day would be 9 hours (a bit over 1/3 of the time). Two 175ml glasses of 12% wine would then be about 4 hours.
If you read my comment carefully, I say exactly that. We know it's not healthy, but we also know that there are no crazy long-term effects if you keep it moderate.
My comment is specifically about people saying alcohol is bad but then smoking weed all day or taking LSD and other drugs and think it's good for them.
> We know it's not healthy, but we also know that there are no crazy long-term effects if you keep it moderate.
I think this claim is unjustified, and that's what your parent comment is trying to point out. Is 14 drinks a week too much? Maybe not, but you aren't likely to find documentary proof of that by looking to the "millennia" of people who did it during an era where those who survived childhood could expect to live to be 60 or so and there was little to no understanding of modern medicine.
If we were able to say with some certainty that 14 drinks a week will give you a 15% chance of getting a serious liver disease, possibly dying from it, I think most people would agree that 14 drinks a week is "dangerous". It's also dangerous at a level that would be near-impossible to discern for generations past.
> 2 glasses of wine a day is a good indicator that you have alcohol in your system at least 1/3rd of your life!
What? The standard, conservative 'party line' quoted by national health authorities is that people process around 1 standard drink per hour. A standard glass of wine is 2 standard drinks, so 2 glasses would take 4 hours max to process, or 1/6 of a day. Unless you're using one of those giant glasses and filling it to the brim so your 'two glasses' is actually a bottle or more.
I am sure plenty of people could claim that cannabis and other drugs found in nature have been used just as long if not longer than alcohol by various tribes and groups around the world.
Weed cost me 5 years of my life that I'm never getting back. It's great if some people can form better habits than me but all the weed users I know (plenty) use it every day all day.
The biggest detriment is opportunity cost, time you'd spend doing something exciting or productive is spent on watching your Netflix queue instead. Some people claim to get a lot of creative work done while stoned but those people probably haven't tried doing it sober for too long.
If you're rolling an after lunch joint while out with friends that's substance abuse even if it's, like, not harmful at all, dude.
I figured out at some point during the last decade that the only stimulant that works for me is THC. Caffeine won't do it. It doesn't matter what I do, if I eat healthy get 8 hours of sleep, exercise, etc, I can wake up and within 30 minutes of work feel so mentally and physically wiped that I have to sleep...rinse and repeat. I've managed to force myself to get through that repeatedly (it didn't really happen to the same extent as a kid - I guess life was more fun).
But weed? Scared the hell out of me the first few times (over years, I'm in an illegal state, but of course it's as easy to get as donuts). You know the usual introspection, whoa dude thoughts, the slightly different perspective you see yourself and the world, and on the high, every time...incredible anxiety. But once I got past that, I could work for 8 hours like I used to, and like most people can.
I was high 24/7 for about 4 or 5 years. I care about my health so I took different precautions (dealers, vapes, etc). However, I don't begin to smoke like some people (I'm not into pot culture), can't physically take those amounts.
Changed my life. I was able to work through major issues like OCD, etc. Guess what? Nobody at work or school nor my family or friends that I've only told recently know that I was high. Couldn't tell at all, entirely functional (more functional than the past).
The real save lately has been delta-8 (the way of the future). It (THC, drugs) is not for everyone and you should not abuse it too young (psychosis). Don't go buy weed off the street and get really high your first time, you might have the worst panic attack in your life.
I agree we shouldn't just rave about drugs like they don't have an impact, but some of you guys don't obviously have that much experience with what you are talking about (not you). No offense, but that's part of the issue. How many decades have we lost and how many tens of thousands of lives have been lost because we are too prudish to test this stuff as it should be?
The geniuses in my state, instead of grabbing the new industry were ready to ban delta-8 to protect the non-existent cannabis industry, or god, or something. It'll all be legal in 10 years anyway, why waste our time? I can't tell you how many small businesses I've visited in the last few months that would have out of business, and how many customers that might have been put in really bad mental spots.
There's a Cowboys player, Randy Gregory, that's lost 4 or 5 years of his career to bans because he smokes pot because it helps his anxiety and bipolar issues. That's criminal.
I drink, sometimes, too.
edit:
To save the Google, delta-8 is just a different form of THC, extracted from hemp produce federally legally due to the 2018 farm bill (magic). Of course there's also CBD from that (the original big industry) and lots of other things coming out Delta-10, etc.
Most people don't get extreme anxiety on THC, but some do... someone is going to correct me if I'm wrong, but THC is psychoactive (CBD is not), so when people are microdosing this or shrooms or whatever they're getting different effects but similar end results. It plays with your perspective and chemistry in a way that alcohol does not, especially at higher doses.
This is an interesting anecdote. I have gotten high several times during my college years and less so since I started my career. In all of the cases I got high, it was primarily for entertainment purposes. However, whenever I am high, I get some sense of clarity about problems that were irking me the week before (I usually do weed over the weekends). This led me to wonder, esp. lately, what if there is actually some connection between productivity and marijuana use (not abuse) and your experience seems to be inline with that. Ofcourse, there are trove of other anecdotes about how weed is used for creative/artistic purposes but I haven't come across ones related to programming.
Jobs always said acid was critical to his success. He dropped a good amount of acid, so that probably really would make you think differently.
People can mock it all they want, but I really do get very creative on weed. There's a reason creative companies don't test for it...
It's not something I've shared, but it always surprises me how often I smell weed on the street (again, "illegal"), how easy it is to get, and how many people I wouldn't expect "abused" it at one point or another. I was scared of telling my parents for a long time but came to find out they were both drug using hippies, anyway.
I'm glad your life improved. I don't abuse any substance (no drugs at all, alcohol few times a year at most in very moderate amount) and I'm atill not doing anything exciting or productive, because I don't have to.
> Some people claim to get a lot of creative work done while stoned but those people probably haven't tried doing it sober for too long.
After smoking every single day for about 5 years I decided to test this hypothesis about a year ago (I had my first kid on the way and didn’t want to be one of those parents that smoked weed.) I also surmised that maybe I really needed to get it all out of my system - by not smoking for months - to know how much an improvement it would be to stop smoking. In the past 11 months I’ve smoked exactly twice (both times around Christmas.)
I can’t honestly say stopping smoking has increased my productivity much. I’m so mentally exhausted from work at the end of each day that the idea of doing anything involving my brain is stressful. Weed helped with that, now I seem to lay on the couch and watch YouTube more. Before I at least used to sit and contemplate work-related stuff a lot more since I was able to relax.
Back when I was getting high every day I used to use voice memos a lot on my phone to record the random “brilliant ideas” I’d have each evening. The next morning I’d listen through them, and they actually led to some of my best answers to technical problems. Stuff I was stuck on at work, I’d be able to find solutions to while high. (Implementing them was another story, I had to wait for the next day for that.)
I’m still not going to go back to smoking weed because of the new kiddo, but I honestly think weed was a net positive for my life.
I'm a heavy smoker - an oz of Indica with 2 grams of powder hash added per week is my mix of choice. I've been a heavy smoker since the 70's, and a computer science research scientist pretty much the entire time. I know I am an outlier, but there are more than a few like us: people that find marihuana to aid in their ability to focus. The work that I do is basically all day calculus, and being high enables my to hyper focus on the minutia of the issue at hand. It can take up to an hour to regain the details of what I'm working on in my head, and then it is statistics and calculus for the remainder of the day. I turn off my phone, quit any communications software, smoke a bowl or three and spend the next 8 hours in abstract symbolic land. It works. I'm quite successful, published, and respected for my work and generally easy going personality. It works. Also, I do not drink booze at all - I hate. Can't think!
That's me. I don't regard it as an advantage, but I've come to be okay with it. I've quit before, for months at a time, and once for 2+ years. I used to go to Japan regularly for 2-3 weeks at a time, during which I'd have none. What I found is that I'm not more productive without it, and the quality of my work was not affected by it.
I found that indeed I am able to concentrate more deeply with it. Without it, I find myself far more tempted to drink to relax -- which breaks my personal rule for alcohol use: never for stress relief, only for celebration.
Same for me, not quite sure it helps me to focus as much as it simply relaxes me enough to allow me to focus better. I think it might have to do with (for me at least) the effects sort of tamping down the signals from my body and allowing me to be more brain-forward if that makes sense. Also helps me cut some of the distracting noise from anxiety.
While I enjoy a drink, booze gives me splitting headaches within 15-20 minutes of drinking anything more than a small (40-50ml) amount.
In my experience, people who quit subsequently taking extreme / absolutist negative positions (I assume it is something for people who actually did have a problem to help them quit?) is much more predictable than concluding that anyone who smokes a joint with friends is certainly a substance abuser or that it is impossible except in theory to be productive or creative if you ever use weed.
I rarely smoke weed, maybe a few times a year (typically as a joint on a summer day after lunch with friends, actually) and I can say I am much more likely to sit around and watch Netflix sober.
I live in the Netherlands, so maybe things are more relaxed around here. I rarely if ever run into someone throwing their life away to it.
I've developed a pretty strong aversion it's true. To the point where being high doesn't feel nice anymore.
I also know two people with PhDs who smoke, they are the kind that limit themselves to smoking in the evening. But then I also know at least 4 people in their late twenties who prefer weed and gaming over getting a job. Both groups are the exception.
Most of my friends still smoke so I'm fine with it, but I'm 100% convinced that people who try to legitimize it as some sort of productivity thing, and try to sell weed usage as anything other than "I like how it makes me feel", are lying.
Though judging from the other comments here maybe I'm just wrong. Maybe it's because I like to do stuff like maths and programming in my free time which is absolutely impossible while high.
Think through your last two paragraphs. Yeah, people that feel good are probably going to be more productive than those feeling bad (assuming you're not feeling too good).
I can't do the stuff you're talking about when I'm not high (or couldn't) because I couldn't stop anxiety and other issues from getting in the way. Weed liberates me from that.
I have friends that hate weed, friends that become different people while high. It's just how it is, not for everyone, though I do prefer delta-8 way more than regular cannabis, not as intense of a high, much more about the focus.
Many drugs feel great but don't make you more productive.
Medical issues are a big exception yeah. I wasn't able to focus at all while high, at least not for a prolonged period of time... I guess it's just different for me. Mostly I stayed up way too late doing nonsense and got very little sleep as a result which impacted my day-to-day activities. It wasn't a good time.
I know a couple people who didn't get anxiety issues until they started smoking. I think there's a portion of the population (not necessarily you) who feel they need it when the anxiety is actually just a weed hangover.
It definitely hits different people differently. My wife doesn't get high. I've seen her smoke good weed and she didn't change in demeanor at all and claimed it didn't do anything.
Personally all it makes me do is think about how shitty my life is for hours (hint: my life is fine..it's just the weed) although some indica stuff will make me giggle for an hour before I pass out. I'm worse than useless when high.
> But then I also know at least 4 people in their late twenties who prefer weed and gaming over getting a job.
I find this kind of phrasing confusing. I think most people would prefer their substance and activity of choice over getting a job, most people just don't have that option. I'm guessing these kids are being supported by their parents or partners?
Fourth guy I was thinking of has a job so I guess I know 3. Parents and unemployment money yeah.
I really miss one guy in particular, none of our group ever see him anymore. The only way I can know what's happening in his life is to talk to the dealer who I hang out with occasionally. Hope he wisens up soon. Used to be a pretty smart guy too but all the doing nothing for years made him dumb.
You've turned it into a negative for you. The feeling of it brings out negative feelings in you. You would need to clear out those roadblocks you setup to reach a neutral state.
Many people love math and can do it while high at a higher level.
> HN is filled with these pop-sci teetotalers who rag on alcohol but promote the uninhibited abuse of THC and other dangerous mind altering drugs. It's an absurd bizzaro world.
I've never seen this. Do you have an example article or comment that supports this? It should be easy to find since "HN is filled with these pop-sci teetotalers".
I've seen it many times in posts relating to health, drug use or alcohol: a tendency to piss all over alcohol in particular (cigarettes as a close second) and those who use anything more than a tiny amount of it while hardly blinking at descriptions by others describing THC, LSD, MDMA and all sorts of other ad hoc mind altering drug mixes as a solution to assorted psychological situations. Many people here regularly describe consuming large amounts of THC in different forms, get applauded by others who do the same and then strongly criticize the notion of someone drinking more than some very moderate, arbitrarily defined amount of alcohol per week or X time frame.
In the absence of concrete evidence showing explicitly why your drug of choice is superior to someone else drug of choice, it's hypocritical to shit on their preferences as moral weakness while you happily indulge your own substances.
There’s a lot of evidence in clinical trials with MDMA and psilocybin mushrooms (which have a lot of similarity to LSD) regarding efficacy for treating various psychological conditions when used in a safe and guided setting.
Pretty sure we have nothing of the sort for alcohol. Just the opposite, in fact, like this article.
I can’t speak for THC.
I wouldn’t say that this evidence makes any substance more morally “superior” to any other, it all depends on the context of use.
Techies especially are a gullible lot, susceptible to new age nonsense, anti-vax style pseudoscience, and a glut of other anti-science things. At least in the Bay Area. It’s ridiculous to see how quickly they take to any fad.
Probably because they think for themselves instead of appointing someone else to do the critical thinking for them.
They think the ones who are gullible are the ones that hear something on the news and repeat it as fact without ever thinking about it.
Anti-science is anti-politics around science not anti-evidence. Things like questioning the Covid bat theory. Glad to see the news is coming around on the lab theory.
It’s more like they think too highly of their own critical thinking skills and aren’t knowledgeable enough about the science to credibly judge the evidence, then pat themselves on the back for “independent thinking.”
What would you call the level below "heavy"? I'd imagine if you asked most people the scale would go something like "nondrinker", "light drinker", "moderate drinker", "heavy drinker", "full blown alcoholic". If so then 14 drinks per week is the upper end of "moderate".
I'd expect it also depends on how you drink it. One restaurant-pour glass of wine with dinner every day adds up to 14 drinks a week but no reasonable person would call it "heavy drinking". (Yes, plenty of people here are saying that it is. No, they're not being reasonable.) I'd expect drinking 14 drinks in one night once a week would absolutely count as heavy drinking, though.
>One restaurant-pour glass of wine with dinner every day adds up to 14 drinks a week but no reasonable person would call it "heavy drinking".
What's the difference between a glass of wine after dinner and 700ml of beer (which is what GP's calculations work out to)? They both have the same amount of alcohol.
None really, although it'd be more like a 500mL beer if it's full strength beer (~4.8%). I don't think I know anyone who would consider a single pint to be "heavy drinking".
I’m starting to see “drinks” measured in terms of volume of pure ethanol. The UK has defined its standard drink as 10ml of pure ethanol, which conveniently comes out to a single 25ml shot of liquor.
Based on the Netflix documentary I watched, it seems like they’re starting to standardize the labels of alcoholic drinks in the UK to inform consumers how many units of alcohol it represents, and also encouraging people to keep their consumption below X/Y units a day and week.
> The UK has defined its standard drink as 10ml of pure ethanol
This is interesting. In the US a standard drink [1] is often considered roughly equivalent to one can of 5% ABV beer, or a 1.5 fl oz shot of 80 proof liquor. That comes out to about ~17.5 ml of alcohol.
I not-infrequently have beers that are 9% ABV. Maybe I should rethink how many servings of alcohol I have a week by international standards...
I think the difference in a standard drink is driven by customary units which tend to be smaller in the UK. A British shot is either 25 or 35ml, while the standard American shot is typically 44ml (1.5oz). British beer is also sold in pint (20 oz) and half pint (10 oz) units, while an American pint will be 16oz across the board.
This layout seems to point towards smaller units, with the smallest British unit being 10ml of ethanol (25ml at 40ABV), while the smallest possible American equivalent would be 17.6ml for a 1.5 oz shot. Thus if we’re using a single shot as our measure of a “standard drink”, then Americans will be consuming about 70% more pure ethanol than their British equivalent per drink.
Also, health authorities have begun rethinking how much drinking is too much, hence the downward deviation of what the international standards say.
geesh. how about doing a generalized survey similar to this on a country level, like there are "muslim majority" countries where alcohol is either banned or is present to a level that it doesnt matter. do those countries see less cancers than say france or any european country or the usa which does have an extensive alcohol use?
Switch it. Are people, on average, who have never drank alcohol living longer and healthier lives than even those on the lowest level of consumption?
This is far more relevant and the answer is likely to be 'depends' due to an average human life being a colossal confluence of many 'stuff'. This 'average' reporting can be dangerously misleading.
Alcohol is metabolized into aldehydes which cross link your DNA, literally preserving you as you are alive. It is a biological miracle that your body has DNA repair enzymes which can basically shrug this off. If we didn't have those enzymes drinking alcohol would lead to similar symptoms as radiation poisoning.
More like a biological necessity. There seems to be no shortage of fairly nasty chemicals produced by common biochemical processes that our bodies just had to evolve ways to seal with.
The best cure for any cancer is an early diagnosis. And it does not matter whether you drink, eat only fatty foods or burn in the sun. Take care of your health, always ask for a second opinion from other doctors and do not get sick!
There are hundreds of causes of cancer. You can be a teetotaler, a vegan, there are no cancer patients in the family, and you can still die from it. Such a study, in my opinion, once again shows that collecting statistics is good, but you still need to be able to analyze it correctly. Millions of people who drink do not get cancer, but they easily die from cirrhosis, which is not cancer in any way. Conversely, millions of people who do not drink or drink a couple of glasses of beer once a month die of cancer.
Many of my friends doubled down on their alcohol use during the pandemic. This might be another side effect of lockdowns that will kill people and simply be ignored by decision makers.
Funny. I stopped drinking altogether during the pandemic. It was too hard to get alcohol in the early months, and I just stopped drinking. Pre pandemic my wife and I would have a beer or glass of wine every night, maybe another one while cooking. Always when out with friends. Now, I may only have 2-3 drinks a month. Our drinking wasn’t problematic but I absolutely notice improvements in my health - I don’t feel like shit in the mornings. Thanks Covid!
Same here, and starting to go out again made it painfully obvious that a lot of what people call "night life" is actually getting (mildly to heavily) impaired to enjoy activities that aren't enjoyable without the impairment
The abundance of pseudo scientific studies that; Confuse correlation with causation. Fail to control for anything to get an interesting conclusion. Or just exaggerate the results. Has left me to instinctively assume, just from the title that either; Cancer causes alcohol use. Alcohol use causes smoking. Or their sampling groups is in a cancer ward.
I'm not saying this is a bad study, or article. I'm just commenting on the sheer amount of crap circulating is leading to a general skepticism that seems to be filtering out people like me from even clicking the title/link to these studies.
> Ethanol, the form of alcohol present in beer, wine and liquor, breaks down to form a known carcinogen called acetaldehyde, which damages DNA and interferes with cells' ability to repair the damage.
> Alcohol can also increase levels of hormones, including estrogen. Hormones signal cells to grow and divide. With more cell division, there are more opportunities for cancer to develop. Alcohol also reduces the body's ability to absorb certain cancer-protective nutrients, including vitamins A, C, D, E and folate.
Thanks. But I think you missed my point, and my second paragraph. But if you think there is an overabundance of accuracy in scientific reporting then perhaps we frequent different places.
This is complete bunk, like most nutrition epidemiological studies. They start by assuming a causal relationship that we simply don't know actually exists, using biologically "plausible" pathways that are, again, unproven. And even then, they don't seem to account for the reduction of cancer risk that many wine and beer studies have shown (though, again, from equally spurious epi studies). And here again we have news outlets just uncritically parroting the findings to their audiences.
The title is wrong here Of the 740k is global not USA. And it represents 4% of all cases. Which is relatively low but not insignificant. I don’t think they are wrong, anecdotal evidence from my family also explains this, the family members who drink quite a lot more than 2 cups a day, they all have colon cancer in my family. Strangely those that do not drink have kept it at bay or at least got it 10/20 years later.
>They start by assuming a causal relationship that we simply don't know actually exists
They assume this causal relationship based on decades of randomised controlled trials (the only ethical way to get this information in humans). Their estimate for the risk of cancer based on alcohol consumption comes from previous work which would have carefully summarised the data from these trials and conservatively estimated the risk.
As for the counter that alcohol may reduce cancer risk. Sure, that is true. You can also demonstrate that sunscreen causes cancer. But does the increased cancer risk from sunscreen outweigh the risk of getting too much sun exposure? Probably not (keep wearing sunscreen!). It is easy to imagine a similar equation for alcohol.
>There are people that drink what the study says to drink, every day?
Not sure, honestly. They seem to pull this data from a WHO database on health statistics [0]. In stricter terms, you are asking if their estimate of what people drink reflects what they really drink in real life. That is, is the estimate biased? I would expect it to be biased in this case.
I am not sure how much it really matters unless you are in charge of large sums of money for public health policy. The best evidence we have suggests alcohol does increase the risk of cancer. Faulty population level alcohol consumption data is not being used for that observation, so it won't matter. Although it would impact the quality of this particular paper.
"Controlled" doesn't appear in the original paper so not sure what you mean there.
There's a lot of people dismmising this study. But I don't think people realise how much history and scholarship is going into this. I am not a cancer biologist, so neither do I. But I can provide a little bit of insight so that people at least know what they are trying to reject.
The data for this study comes from the GLOBOCAN database, which seems to be an aggregator of cancer data [0]. This database must be massive in it's scale. The abstract states an estimated 750,000 cases attributable to alcohol consumption. That's a lot of people. But the actual data they are using contains several million participants at a minimum! You can take a look at some of the numbers here [1]. "19.3 million cases and 10 million cancer deaths in 2020" are huge numbers, even if they are staying with just 2020 registered cancer cases. How do they get these numbers? It looks like they have aggregated together cancer registries from multiple countries. Some of these will be super accurate (e.g Nordic countries, New Zealand etc) and some more sparse and less complete.
The estimates of cancer risk come from about the most authoritative scholary source possible today: "World Cancer Research Fund International’s Continuous Update Project" which appears to be a kind of set of mega systematic reviews on the links between diet/nutrition/exerice on cancer risk. This project has massive amounts of scholarship, data, and experience behind it [2].
You may think the paper is still crap. But maybe think for a moment before rejecting it out of hand. This isn't a single biased study of 30 white college students at Harvard. This is a model based on data from whole nation's cancer registries combined with parameters estimated from the best, hopefully least biased, human trial studies we can manage with the resources available to us.
Most of you only know your peer group, who are also nerds with jobs. The vast majority of weed smokers are serious drug addicts who do it all day, search for it all day and are also into heavier drugs...besides multiple trips to jail, kids they don't want, families who are either drug addicts or have severed ties due to the damage caused...and finally they lead a severely unhealthy life they hate. You stupid, self righteous hippie wannabes.
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 278 ms ] threadWhat do you make of studies such as this? Their baseline was strictly lifetime abstainers, absolutely no people who stopped drinking for medical reasons. Still, moderate drinking results in lower all-cause mortality.
There are way more possible explanations better than "some amount of ethyl alcohol is actually a little bit beneficial".
Interestingly, (wrt. https://www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacc.2017.06.054) the 15 drink-a-week threshold that's often quoted as a kind of limit to safe drinking puts your all-cause-mortality risk right at that of lifetime teetotalers. The utilitarian implication is that, after 15 drinks a week, you really are causing harm relative to not drinking at all. So its costs outweigh any benefits. But that implies that there are benefits. These may be very subtle.
Perhaps alcohol is part of a balanced diet. It arises during digestion. You find it in ripe fruit, a significant part of many primate diets. It also appears to be part of the typical diet in many of the regions of the world that have the highest life expectancy. Would they live even longer if they could shake the habit? Maybe we could study that genetically. Are these cultures just healthier for other reasons, and thus more tolerant of alcohol? It would be like the entire society has shifted along the curve shown here https://www.jacc.org/cms/asset/f6fb55ac-3d9d-4e40-8128-ec785....
That’s not all that surprising to me.
> Globally, an estimated 741 300 (95% UI 558 500–951 200), or 4.1% (3.1–5.3), of all new cases of cancer in 2020 were attributable to alcohol consumption. Males accounted for 568 700 (76.7%; 95% UI 422 500–731 100) of total alcohol-attributable cancer cases, and cancers of the oesophagus (189 700 cases [110 900–274 600]), liver (154 700 cases [43 700–281 500]), and breast (98 300 cases [68 200–130 500]) contributed the most cases.
So ~4 out of 100 cancer cases can be attributed to alcohol consumption. I'm not sure if that's a _ton_ or how to contextualize it, but that seems like the more appropriate framing.
> What's the connection?
> There are a few biological pathways that lead from alcohol consumption to a cancer diagnosis, according to the study. Ethanol, the form of alcohol present in beer, wine and liquor, breaks down to form a known carcinogen called acetaldehyde, which damages DNA and interferes with cells' ability to repair the damage.
> Alcohol can also increase levels of hormones, including estrogen. Hormones signal cells to grow and divide. With more cell division, there are more opportunities for cancer to develop. Alcohol also reduces the body's ability to absorb certain cancer-protective nutrients, including vitamins A, C, D, E and folate.
> What's more, the combination of drinking and smoking might indirectly increase the risk of cancer, with alcohol acting as a kind of solvent for the carcinogenic chemicals in tobacco.
When you consider how many people are regular drinkers (and how low the bar is set - only 2 drinks per day) vs how many people get cancer (39.5%), then if only 4% of cancer occurred in regular drinkers, then you would naturally draw the conclusion that regular drinking appears to prevent cancer.
But that goes against the narrative that they're selling.
True, that's just a way to question it from a different angle and try to understand it. But if they don't address that angle, then it doesn't really say much.
Lots of people drink and smoke and will not ever get cancer. The authors are not disputing this. They do however suggest that drinking might increase your risk of getting cancer.
No, that's just bullshit. 4% of cases being attributed to alcohol does not mean that only 4% of cancer patients are drinkers.
You don't even understand how risk attribution works, but are happy to spin your own narrative.
I once read if humans were biologically immortal, everyone would basically get cancer if they lived to be 2,000 years old.
It's just inevitable.
Hopefully it comes later in life, rather than sooner.
Species such as whales and elephants, who have a lot more cells than humans do, have much stronger anti-cancer mechanisms than humans and rarely get cancer.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/08/elephants-rarely-get...
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325178
Multiply up enough of those chances over time, and the limit approaches a 100% chance. It's almost surprising that so few people die of cancer.
Of course, it's always happening, and our bodies are fighting it off all the time. But each time they try, there's a chance that it won't be effective. So it still over time approaches 100%, if something else doesn't get you first.
"relatively" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. I'm always amazed when filling out health surveys where it considers one alcoholic drink every single day a "low level".
I don't recall if this was precovid or postcovid, but there was a 60 minutes where they were talking about the impact that understanding the genome has had on health research, but specifically curing some cancers and longevity. They had a harvard prof on there that firmly believed that within 7 years that we'll be seeing real advances (that the public will have access to) on that.
7 years is nothing. You know it's not going to take 7 years, it's going to take 25, but stop pickling yourselves so you can make it that far. I have 45 year old friends that act like they are going to die tomorrow.
edit:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/harvard-geneticist-george-churc...
This is the 60 minutes in question. Keep in mind academic timelines. It's longer than seven years, money quote, among other interesting stuff:
> Scott Pelley: What's the time horizon on age reversal in humans?
George Church: That's in clinical trials right now in dogs. And so, that veterinary product might be a couple years away and then that takes another ten years to get through the human clinical trials.
Pretty sure the boomers are the ones that came after WW2, the aforementioned "boom" of their namesake being progeny of those that didn't die during the blitz, Normandy, Stalingrad, and everywhere in between.
I recall reading that the day WW1 was declared over, people were copulating in the streets of London.
People have an urge to rebuild the population.
Boomers had parents suffering from post ww2 problems, problems likely dealt with by alcohol.
One beer to celebrate sitting in your garden at the end of the work day, one glass of wine at dinner, one scotch before bed.
Alcohol is a poisson and there is no "safe" level.
Now, it's a personal decision how much risk is acceptable to you, but don't lie to yourself how "one glass a day is not going to make a difference".
If one glass a day only slightly increases your risk (Say a few % points), then it will effectively make no difference.
I mean, you could say the same about riding a motorcycle. Riding a motorcycle only slightly increases your risk of dying in a horrible traffic accident, but for a lot of people the risk is big enough that they stop riding once they have kids.
You're constantly scanning for that one car that won't see you and plow into the side of you, and if you're in the hills a lapse in concentration or patch of gravel can throw you off.
What I mean by that is it's much easier to identify it as a high risk activity compared to alcohol or cigarettes since the risk is an in your face might end you today, rather than an abstract idea of this will hurt you in the long run
Alcohol isn't like that. Alcohol is more akin to something like going up stairs or showering or heck, a little similar to smoking. None of these things seem all that dangerous while you do them. But as it turns out, showers are pretty dangerous. Stairs make for horrible accidents, which is why it is so important to have the angle and height right (and even). Smoking, at first, does't seem like it'll give you cancer in 30 years, and may neve "feel" dangerous if you do it sporadically.
And the poster is correct: It doesn't matter much if you have a 3% more chance of dying of something if your chances are properly low in the first place - even after the increase, your chances are still low.
Most people I know have someone in their family or friends who has died because of alcohol related diseases or accidents.
The risks become overlooked because of familiarity and it makes it easier to minimize the risks. It doesn't help that the downsides often aren't immediate: It takes some years to develop disease from it, after all. In general, it takes hours for you to wind up in the hospital or harm someone else - but most of the time, much like showering or walking up the stairs, nothing of note happens.
I know it’s a typo, and it doesn’t invalidate anything you wrote; but it’s also the French word for "fish", which makes the whole thing quite hilarious to read.
Industry funded studies told us smoking was safe for a long time. In the case of alcohol we absolutely know that high doses are very dangerous. There are lies, damn lies, and statistics, after all.
Maybe there's a safe dose of alcohol. Maybe the risk of low doses is small enough to be accepted. But we've been lied to buy poison vendors enough times that I'll take any of their proclamations of safety with a mountain of salt.
For the other it is not replacement in any meaningful sense. The equivalent amount wont stop your thirst and one cup of grapefruit juice feels like you have drunk nothing.
Helps with relaxation, anxiety and even acts as a short term antidepressant.
With that in mind, there is a safe level, just as there is with paracetamol.
Of course, having better medication is, well, better. But not everyone has access to it.
That said I have been struggling with it ever since I can remember and I wish I never tried it. It's very hard to stop once I start drinking.
There’s a chart we were shown in Med school with DALYs of different drugs and while alcohol had a big negative side it also had a positive side which was the only one
No, it’s very definitely a depressant. Some might get ecstatic momentarily, but they’re likely to be crying within minutes, or maybe even trying to commit murder or rape — one of the worse side effects of alcohol is criminal behavior.
You need to stop getting your information from high school MADD presentations.
The wisdom of ages, or if you prefer,
“Robbery and violent crimes often involve alcohol use, and there is a positive correlation between such crimes and alcohol use. 15% of robberies, 63% of intimate partner violence incidents, 37% of sexual assaults, 45-46% of physical assaults and 40-45% of homicides in the United States involved use of alcohol.”
So not just merriment and conviviality. There’s a flip side.
https://www.insider.com/dry-january-drinking-alcohol-could-h...
That's not true.
Part of the harm caused by alcohol comes from the way that your body metabolizes it...into sugars. The whole "a glass of red wine with dinner is heart-healthy" thing has also been pretty thoroughly debunked.
Even if that were true, it does orders of magnitude more harm than good, and should be considered a poison.
We absolutely do not want to propagate the idea that it can be heathy if consumed responsibly.
If I give that up, how much extra lifespan should I expect on average? A week? A month? A year?
I'm just saying that there is a risk, and people should be aware of that fact.
Someone out there is going to be unlucky and get colon cancer from their daily glass of wine. And they probably think it's just bad luck, it can't be from alcohol because they drink just one glass a day.
(Reminds me of a relative who likes talking about how his daily glass of red wine made him live to 90. I think it's the successful chemo treatment for his throat cancer that made him live to 90, but I'm not a doctor)
If it's part of your routine you might have a glass or two of wine with dinner most nights. Or a couple of pints in the pub after work. Maybe you never really get drunk, but you're drinking a lot of alcohol.
I used to drink pretty infrequently. Sure, I'd have a six pack a party every now and then but most of the time I was busy with other things.
Now that there's not so many 'other things' to do I do find myself drinking more and more regularly.
Since we mostly don't really understand what cancer actually is, it's a bit of a stretch to break down percent supposedly caused by alcohol. I can readily think of other possible reasons for a correlation.
I really believe that after another relative of mine caused two cancer clinics to change their practices.
I really believe that after listening to the tales of a relative be patient zero in a cancer study.
And on and on.
Cancer runs rampant in my family. I've had multiple relatives who have had it, some multiple times.
Your opinions about my opinions not withstanding, I will continue to believe what makes sense to me.
And I will continue to believe experts that have specialized in a area of study that I have not, regardless of my personal comprehension of the topic.
Commenting on the internet "I'm more virtuous than you because I dismiss your experience without caring what it is" isn't particularly sensible, it's tribal signalling "I'm in the science tribe not the conspiracy-alternative-health-woo tribe". Isn't it?
No thanks, oh wait: it’s too late for me.
But they don't mention any other adjustments (age, other dietary factors, BMI...).
Some cancers are known to be caused by viruses. Maybe people drink because they caught a virus that causes cancer, either to self medicate or because the virus makes them crave alcohol.
Who will accept a researcher-imposed dietary restriction for years? Who will follow it without requiring supervision?
These cohort studies are the next best thing. The correlation is with alcohol consumption 10 years earlier, and they looked at the changes in countries' alcohol consumption.
I'm trying to walk away from a completely ridiculous pile on from an excessive number of people here. This is not a productive conversation at all and I have no idea why it went so wildly sideways.
I believe people reacted because you downplayed the importance of the study (at least I did). Just because it doesn't outright prove causation, doesn't mean we should not pay attention.
In the past decades, public health suffered immensely due to "benefit of the doubt" given to smoking.
Cigarette companies used the same arguments as you: “Sure there are statistics associating lung cancer and cigarettes. There are statistics associating lung cancer with divorce, and even with lack of sleep. But no scientist has produced clinical or biological proof that cigarettes cause the diseases they are accused of causing.”
https://nutritionfacts.org/2019/04/04/the-disconnect-between...
Also your logic doesn't hold. In cause and effect, you don't need to understand the effect to know the cause.
> it's a bit of a stretch to break down percent supposedly caused by alcohol
eh, I think we know quite a lot about cancers and quite a lot about alcohol's effects on the human body. The fact that it is complex doesn't mean that we don't understand it at all.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3860434/
They completely forgot that many people who don't drink do so because of other confounding health complications that may increase mortality.
Talk about not controlling for variables, yeesh :|
No kids/grandkids for me so I don't see much value in old age.
I have to live now and only have 15-20 good years left. Once that time comes it is time to party. Cigars, weed and rum. A broken down physical body with an even more broken down mind is a fate worse than death to me.
these people are fucking retarded
- How valid is the assumption "assuming a 10-year latency period between alcohol consumption and cancer diagnosis"?
- Why would not one attempt to find correlation between yearly reported cases (or PAF if applicable) and yearly alcohol consumption instead? As it stands, some points in the discussion read like assertions. One example is this:
> Our estimated global PAF was lower than the previous global estimates of 5·5% of cancer cases in 2012, 4·8% of cancer deaths in 2016, and 4·9% of cancer deaths in 2019. This difference could be due to genuine decreases in consumption of alcohol in several world regions, such as in southern Europe and central and eastern Europe, as Shield and colleagues reported a 5·5% decrease in the global alcohol-attributable age-standardised rate of death from cancer between 2000 and 2016.
And this:
> On the other end of the spectrum, alcohol consumption in central and eastern Europe has historically outranked that of other world regions, but has decreased in recent years, whereas increases in alcohol consumption, linked with countries' economic development, are projected in Asian countries such as China and India.
The statements above seem to be at odds with each other according to the number of alcohol-attributed cases from each country in the appendix.[2]
[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2...
[2] https://www.thelancet.com/cms/10.1016/S1470-2045(21)00279-5/...
Edit: formatting, removed part of a sentence for a better tone. Edit 2: removed irrelevant part in the second quote.
This is not a helpful statistic because it doesn't say what percent of people are in this category. I skimmed the actual paper [1] and it appears that there is no designation below "moderate drinking" so this literally captures everyone who drinks 2 drinks or less per day.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2...
Exactly. I came here to ask whether anyone had read the paper carefully enough to say whether this information is actually missing or just absent from the summary.
I get the impression that there is a sort of culture war going on. Some seem to be so keen on stressing that there is no safe level of drinking that they avoid saying anything about where the risk curve really starts to bend upward more steeply, which is what most people will want to know.
This is absolutely what's happening. Messaging from some official sources is so ideologically driven that they happily publish wrong and misleading information if they think it will further their goal.
The measure has become the target and so ceased to become a good measure.
I would not be terribly surprised if most of the issues with moderate drinkers concerned users were on the heavy side of "moderate"
15 drinks per week is actually the limit here for commercial drivers. If you admit to drinking more than that during your annual/semi-annual DMV physical, you have essentially just admitted to alcoholism and can't keep driving class A/B vehicles unless you enter a substance abuse program.
Who hurt you?
That is intellectual dishonesty at its prime.
Throwing around accusations like intellectual dishonesty sorta doesn’t help conversation.
I agree with you that many people like to drink to suppress or bring forth their emotions. This could be generalized: many people like to heavily alter their state of consciousness.
Now, mostly because of Big Booze and government corruption, we are stuck in a system where the only legal way to heavily alter one’s consciousness is alcohol.
Culture revolves around this. Counterculture then naturally involves illegal ways to alter one’s consciousness. Since counterculture exists defined through culture as an avantgarde-like necessity - a forefront of cultural innovation - it is again natural that the makers of mainstream culture are actually counterculturalists. It is also why mainstream art - music, books, movies, TV - contains so many examples of ”promoting” drug use.
It is thus obvious that the legality of alcohol and illegality of drugs are more significant drivers of behaviour than ”alcohol culture”.
We have hundreds of mainstream idols from Willie Nelson to Snoop Dogg openly promoting cannabis use, yet cannabis culture is literally cracked down on wherever it is illegal.
Ultimately, the law trumps culture.
Were there cultures that didn’t produce as much demand for altered states of consciousness, those might be seen as better addressing the needs of its people (in theory, not making this argument as I’m not a Puritan but just for the sake of conversation).
It’s obvious that original cultures have their own traditional substances, from fly agaric to psilocybe shrooms to cava to ayahuasca. They would be taken as a part of a prosocial setting, an initiation or a healing ceremony, and the inebriation would be seen as a transformative process: something that enables living fully. Alcohol, on the other hand, tends to only disable and provide a means to escape stress.
What happens to the aforementioned shaman culture once western values and substances are introduced?
I would assume the increase in ego-centric stress drives the population into escape mode, and the imperialist offers alcohol.
I don't drink at all anymore but when I was younger 15 beers in a week wasn't some magic alcoholism line.
If the gap between 14 and 15 is linear and not somehow logarithmic then you're telling me that consuming exactly two drinks a day will be fine, but that extra scotch you have on friday makes you an alcoholic. This term is thrown around loosely by people who have never actually met an alcoholic. Even a high functioning "weekend warrior" is noticeable.
The total risk for serious liver damage drinking a 6 pack a day for over 10 years is only 18%. Of these people, around 13% develop into cirrhosis. No one has been able to explain why. For some people, especially women, the effects of alcohol are far more damaging. Much like BMI, population statistics are not as useful as what actually matters. Body mass per unit alcohol consumed. A smaller person drinking 15 drinks a week may develop health problems. A 180 pound male may or may not.
Am I encouraging drinking that heavily because the risk is 18%? No not at all. I am simply stating that these "drink limits" are arbitrary and completely and entirely made up. Mediterraneans, regularly cited for their longevity, consume more than 15 drinks a week on a regular basis.
HN is filled with these pop-sci teetotalers who rag on alcohol but promote the uninhibited abuse of THC and other dangerous mind altering drugs. It's an absurd bizzaro world.
Exactly! People have been drinking for millenia, and while alcohol doesn't make you healthier, it's also clear that drinking "normally" doesn't cause major health issues (unlike, smoking cigarettes for example). Sure, if you drink 2 bottles of wine a day, you're going to have a problem. Not so much with 2 glasses of wine a day.
THC, microdosing and all that other stuff is relatively new and the long-term effecs are not well researched. Shorter term, it's clear that THC can cause issues like schizophrenia, especially with teenagers. I would expect much more long-term negative effects of mind altering drugs, just because they fuck with your brain.
While I generally agree about arbitrary cutoffs, 2 glasses of wine a day is a good indicator that you have alcohol in your system at least 1/3rd of your life! There are people who don’t get phased by this, but more likely people are just used to it and adapt (much like with coffee)
The concept of a line being arbitrary is a thing but it’s not a crazy line (especially if you’re only drinking every other day that’s 4 glasses a day).
My comment is specifically about people saying alcohol is bad but then smoking weed all day or taking LSD and other drugs and think it's good for them.
I think this claim is unjustified, and that's what your parent comment is trying to point out. Is 14 drinks a week too much? Maybe not, but you aren't likely to find documentary proof of that by looking to the "millennia" of people who did it during an era where those who survived childhood could expect to live to be 60 or so and there was little to no understanding of modern medicine.
If we were able to say with some certainty that 14 drinks a week will give you a 15% chance of getting a serious liver disease, possibly dying from it, I think most people would agree that 14 drinks a week is "dangerous". It's also dangerous at a level that would be near-impossible to discern for generations past.
What? The standard, conservative 'party line' quoted by national health authorities is that people process around 1 standard drink per hour. A standard glass of wine is 2 standard drinks, so 2 glasses would take 4 hours max to process, or 1/6 of a day. Unless you're using one of those giant glasses and filling it to the brim so your 'two glasses' is actually a bottle or more.
These people drank 14 or less drinks a week.
They didn't test one glass or half a glass or a sip per week.
Today's study said 15 is heavy drinking. Where does 14 fit in?
The biggest detriment is opportunity cost, time you'd spend doing something exciting or productive is spent on watching your Netflix queue instead. Some people claim to get a lot of creative work done while stoned but those people probably haven't tried doing it sober for too long.
If you're rolling an after lunch joint while out with friends that's substance abuse even if it's, like, not harmful at all, dude.
I figured out at some point during the last decade that the only stimulant that works for me is THC. Caffeine won't do it. It doesn't matter what I do, if I eat healthy get 8 hours of sleep, exercise, etc, I can wake up and within 30 minutes of work feel so mentally and physically wiped that I have to sleep...rinse and repeat. I've managed to force myself to get through that repeatedly (it didn't really happen to the same extent as a kid - I guess life was more fun).
But weed? Scared the hell out of me the first few times (over years, I'm in an illegal state, but of course it's as easy to get as donuts). You know the usual introspection, whoa dude thoughts, the slightly different perspective you see yourself and the world, and on the high, every time...incredible anxiety. But once I got past that, I could work for 8 hours like I used to, and like most people can.
I was high 24/7 for about 4 or 5 years. I care about my health so I took different precautions (dealers, vapes, etc). However, I don't begin to smoke like some people (I'm not into pot culture), can't physically take those amounts.
Changed my life. I was able to work through major issues like OCD, etc. Guess what? Nobody at work or school nor my family or friends that I've only told recently know that I was high. Couldn't tell at all, entirely functional (more functional than the past).
The real save lately has been delta-8 (the way of the future). It (THC, drugs) is not for everyone and you should not abuse it too young (psychosis). Don't go buy weed off the street and get really high your first time, you might have the worst panic attack in your life.
I agree we shouldn't just rave about drugs like they don't have an impact, but some of you guys don't obviously have that much experience with what you are talking about (not you). No offense, but that's part of the issue. How many decades have we lost and how many tens of thousands of lives have been lost because we are too prudish to test this stuff as it should be?
The geniuses in my state, instead of grabbing the new industry were ready to ban delta-8 to protect the non-existent cannabis industry, or god, or something. It'll all be legal in 10 years anyway, why waste our time? I can't tell you how many small businesses I've visited in the last few months that would have out of business, and how many customers that might have been put in really bad mental spots.
There's a Cowboys player, Randy Gregory, that's lost 4 or 5 years of his career to bans because he smokes pot because it helps his anxiety and bipolar issues. That's criminal.
I drink, sometimes, too.
edit:
To save the Google, delta-8 is just a different form of THC, extracted from hemp produce federally legally due to the 2018 farm bill (magic). Of course there's also CBD from that (the original big industry) and lots of other things coming out Delta-10, etc.
Most people don't get extreme anxiety on THC, but some do... someone is going to correct me if I'm wrong, but THC is psychoactive (CBD is not), so when people are microdosing this or shrooms or whatever they're getting different effects but similar end results. It plays with your perspective and chemistry in a way that alcohol does not, especially at higher doses.
People can mock it all they want, but I really do get very creative on weed. There's a reason creative companies don't test for it...
It's not something I've shared, but it always surprises me how often I smell weed on the street (again, "illegal"), how easy it is to get, and how many people I wouldn't expect "abused" it at one point or another. I was scared of telling my parents for a long time but came to find out they were both drug using hippies, anyway.
Thanks for adding the caveat. Most people on this thread are pretty ignorant about drugs, except for me, you and the person reading this comment.
I say that because we're going full on reefer madness with stuff like:
"uninhibited abuse of THC and other dangerous mind altering drugs"
After smoking every single day for about 5 years I decided to test this hypothesis about a year ago (I had my first kid on the way and didn’t want to be one of those parents that smoked weed.) I also surmised that maybe I really needed to get it all out of my system - by not smoking for months - to know how much an improvement it would be to stop smoking. In the past 11 months I’ve smoked exactly twice (both times around Christmas.)
I can’t honestly say stopping smoking has increased my productivity much. I’m so mentally exhausted from work at the end of each day that the idea of doing anything involving my brain is stressful. Weed helped with that, now I seem to lay on the couch and watch YouTube more. Before I at least used to sit and contemplate work-related stuff a lot more since I was able to relax.
Back when I was getting high every day I used to use voice memos a lot on my phone to record the random “brilliant ideas” I’d have each evening. The next morning I’d listen through them, and they actually led to some of my best answers to technical problems. Stuff I was stuck on at work, I’d be able to find solutions to while high. (Implementing them was another story, I had to wait for the next day for that.)
I’m still not going to go back to smoking weed because of the new kiddo, but I honestly think weed was a net positive for my life.
My official saying is, "because it works for me doesn't mean it will work for you."
Additionally, alcohol absolutely feels like it destroys my body. Like, two drinks kills my productivity the next day, guaranteed.
I found that indeed I am able to concentrate more deeply with it. Without it, I find myself far more tempted to drink to relax -- which breaks my personal rule for alcohol use: never for stress relief, only for celebration.
While I enjoy a drink, booze gives me splitting headaches within 15-20 minutes of drinking anything more than a small (40-50ml) amount.
I rarely smoke weed, maybe a few times a year (typically as a joint on a summer day after lunch with friends, actually) and I can say I am much more likely to sit around and watch Netflix sober.
I live in the Netherlands, so maybe things are more relaxed around here. I rarely if ever run into someone throwing their life away to it.
I also know two people with PhDs who smoke, they are the kind that limit themselves to smoking in the evening. But then I also know at least 4 people in their late twenties who prefer weed and gaming over getting a job. Both groups are the exception.
Most of my friends still smoke so I'm fine with it, but I'm 100% convinced that people who try to legitimize it as some sort of productivity thing, and try to sell weed usage as anything other than "I like how it makes me feel", are lying.
Though judging from the other comments here maybe I'm just wrong. Maybe it's because I like to do stuff like maths and programming in my free time which is absolutely impossible while high.
I can't do the stuff you're talking about when I'm not high (or couldn't) because I couldn't stop anxiety and other issues from getting in the way. Weed liberates me from that.
I have friends that hate weed, friends that become different people while high. It's just how it is, not for everyone, though I do prefer delta-8 way more than regular cannabis, not as intense of a high, much more about the focus.
Medical issues are a big exception yeah. I wasn't able to focus at all while high, at least not for a prolonged period of time... I guess it's just different for me. Mostly I stayed up way too late doing nonsense and got very little sleep as a result which impacted my day-to-day activities. It wasn't a good time.
It definitely hits different people differently. My wife doesn't get high. I've seen her smoke good weed and she didn't change in demeanor at all and claimed it didn't do anything.
Personally all it makes me do is think about how shitty my life is for hours (hint: my life is fine..it's just the weed) although some indica stuff will make me giggle for an hour before I pass out. I'm worse than useless when high.
There's a huge range in response.
I find this kind of phrasing confusing. I think most people would prefer their substance and activity of choice over getting a job, most people just don't have that option. I'm guessing these kids are being supported by their parents or partners?
I really miss one guy in particular, none of our group ever see him anymore. The only way I can know what's happening in his life is to talk to the dealer who I hang out with occasionally. Hope he wisens up soon. Used to be a pretty smart guy too but all the doing nothing for years made him dumb.
Many people love math and can do it while high at a higher level.
But the people I know who smoke do if in the evening or on weekends, and are nothing like what you describe.
I've never seen this. Do you have an example article or comment that supports this? It should be easy to find since "HN is filled with these pop-sci teetotalers".
In the absence of concrete evidence showing explicitly why your drug of choice is superior to someone else drug of choice, it's hypocritical to shit on their preferences as moral weakness while you happily indulge your own substances.
Pretty sure we have nothing of the sort for alcohol. Just the opposite, in fact, like this article.
I can’t speak for THC.
I wouldn’t say that this evidence makes any substance more morally “superior” to any other, it all depends on the context of use.
They think the ones who are gullible are the ones that hear something on the news and repeat it as fact without ever thinking about it.
Anti-science is anti-politics around science not anti-evidence. Things like questioning the Covid bat theory. Glad to see the news is coming around on the lab theory.
I'd expect it also depends on how you drink it. One restaurant-pour glass of wine with dinner every day adds up to 14 drinks a week but no reasonable person would call it "heavy drinking". (Yes, plenty of people here are saying that it is. No, they're not being reasonable.) I'd expect drinking 14 drinks in one night once a week would absolutely count as heavy drinking, though.
What's the difference between a glass of wine after dinner and 700ml of beer (which is what GP's calculations work out to)? They both have the same amount of alcohol.
Disclaimer : former 'functioning' alcoholic.
Based on the Netflix documentary I watched, it seems like they’re starting to standardize the labels of alcoholic drinks in the UK to inform consumers how many units of alcohol it represents, and also encouraging people to keep their consumption below X/Y units a day and week.
This is interesting. In the US a standard drink [1] is often considered roughly equivalent to one can of 5% ABV beer, or a 1.5 fl oz shot of 80 proof liquor. That comes out to about ~17.5 ml of alcohol.
I not-infrequently have beers that are 9% ABV. Maybe I should rethink how many servings of alcohol I have a week by international standards...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_drink
This layout seems to point towards smaller units, with the smallest British unit being 10ml of ethanol (25ml at 40ABV), while the smallest possible American equivalent would be 17.6ml for a 1.5 oz shot. Thus if we’re using a single shot as our measure of a “standard drink”, then Americans will be consuming about 70% more pure ethanol than their British equivalent per drink.
Also, health authorities have begun rethinking how much drinking is too much, hence the downward deviation of what the international standards say.
That are two crates of beer a month.
I drink 1-2 times a month and 4-5 beer a night is as much as it gets.
This is far more relevant and the answer is likely to be 'depends' due to an average human life being a colossal confluence of many 'stuff'. This 'average' reporting can be dangerously misleading.
Maybe our ancestors who did not have this repair enzymes died while those people whose body mutated to make this enzyme survived?
I'm not saying this is a bad study, or article. I'm just commenting on the sheer amount of crap circulating is leading to a general skepticism that seems to be filtering out people like me from even clicking the title/link to these studies.
> Ethanol, the form of alcohol present in beer, wine and liquor, breaks down to form a known carcinogen called acetaldehyde, which damages DNA and interferes with cells' ability to repair the damage.
> Alcohol can also increase levels of hormones, including estrogen. Hormones signal cells to grow and divide. With more cell division, there are more opportunities for cancer to develop. Alcohol also reduces the body's ability to absorb certain cancer-protective nutrients, including vitamins A, C, D, E and folate.
They assume this causal relationship based on decades of randomised controlled trials (the only ethical way to get this information in humans). Their estimate for the risk of cancer based on alcohol consumption comes from previous work which would have carefully summarised the data from these trials and conservatively estimated the risk.
As for the counter that alcohol may reduce cancer risk. Sure, that is true. You can also demonstrate that sunscreen causes cancer. But does the increased cancer risk from sunscreen outweigh the risk of getting too much sun exposure? Probably not (keep wearing sunscreen!). It is easy to imagine a similar equation for alcohol.
What else would 'controlled' mean in this context?
Not sure, honestly. They seem to pull this data from a WHO database on health statistics [0]. In stricter terms, you are asking if their estimate of what people drink reflects what they really drink in real life. That is, is the estimate biased? I would expect it to be biased in this case.
I am not sure how much it really matters unless you are in charge of large sums of money for public health policy. The best evidence we have suggests alcohol does increase the risk of cancer. Faulty population level alcohol consumption data is not being used for that observation, so it won't matter. Although it would impact the quality of this particular paper.
"Controlled" doesn't appear in the original paper so not sure what you mean there.
0. https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/global-information-...
The data for this study comes from the GLOBOCAN database, which seems to be an aggregator of cancer data [0]. This database must be massive in it's scale. The abstract states an estimated 750,000 cases attributable to alcohol consumption. That's a lot of people. But the actual data they are using contains several million participants at a minimum! You can take a look at some of the numbers here [1]. "19.3 million cases and 10 million cancer deaths in 2020" are huge numbers, even if they are staying with just 2020 registered cancer cases. How do they get these numbers? It looks like they have aggregated together cancer registries from multiple countries. Some of these will be super accurate (e.g Nordic countries, New Zealand etc) and some more sparse and less complete.
The estimates of cancer risk come from about the most authoritative scholary source possible today: "World Cancer Research Fund International’s Continuous Update Project" which appears to be a kind of set of mega systematic reviews on the links between diet/nutrition/exerice on cancer risk. This project has massive amounts of scholarship, data, and experience behind it [2].
You may think the paper is still crap. But maybe think for a moment before rejecting it out of hand. This isn't a single biased study of 30 white college students at Harvard. This is a model based on data from whole nation's cancer registries combined with parameters estimated from the best, hopefully least biased, human trial studies we can manage with the resources available to us.
0. https://www.uicc.org/who-we-are/about-us 1. https://www.uicc.org/news/globocan-2020-new-global-cancer-da... 2. https://www.wcrf.org/dietandcancer/a-summary-of-the-third-ex...
As presented it literally makes claim sound like a wide-eyes, self-righteous temperance fanatic claiming liquor will "send you to hell!"
Not much on science and more on religious fervor! We went down the road once before and it made things worse.