There's also a limit between a healthy lifestyle and enjoyment of life, beyond which towards "maximum health" you'll either go to an early grave because of how bland your life is, or live a joyless life avoiding things you'd enjoy.
In any case, those kind of "research" is for modern americans (and people taking their cues from anglosaxon culture) , who are already conditioned in such hysteria - which is funny in the country eating some of the worst quality food in the Western world, cooked the worst ways, in the worst portions, and with the worst mass production integredients. Or perhaps an overcorrection.
The average Italian, for example, should, and definitely, would just laught this off.
If you need to have a strict health-based regiment for eating and drinking to have a joyful life, I'm even sorrier for you.
In the end, it's less about health and living life to the fullest, and more about a modern hysteria based on fear of living (or fear of the thought of our eventual demise, which is the same).
Do you need sugar, red meat, fat to have a joyful life? You do, don't you. Having a glass of wine or two should be treated the same.
If you have religious reservations, please use your energy to fight off islamists who deal drugs, take bribes and marry with young children. Those sin more than people who indulge in a glass of wine or two.
Well, for example we are currently experiencing 80% p.a. inflation, because Islam forbids interest rates. Gulenists were religious extremists but they were at least somewhat educated. Erdogan and his crew are not. We are turning against science and into a medieval interpretation of Islam each day. It is very frightening.
Everybody needs things to have an enjoyable life. Alcohol can be one of those things. It can also destroy your life, of course. As can too much sugar, too much sun exposure, etc etc
Alcohol is so culturally embedded in West the replies here are so sad. Alcohol is poison and it fucks up kidney, liver and brain. Sets cortisol base levels higher and perpetuates a habit in such a way that, you HAVE to drink to feel normal and relaxed. This cycle perpetuates and you associate alcohol with relaxation all the while alcohol is imposing higher and higher tax on you.
It is like a robber - robbing $100 when you are sleeping and giving $50 when you visit them. Its the unawareness that you are being robbed of hundred makes him look like a good guy.
note: I do not mind your downvote.. but if you are downvoting - please schedule a bloodwork and take a look at your numbers.
There’s no reason you can’t have a joyful life without alcohol. The biggest joys in life don’t directly correlate with it.
But, a good glass of wine with a nice meal adds something beautiful. The dinner parties where everyone is 3 glasses in produce some of the most memorable, happy, joyful conversations of my life.
There’s a reason that throughout history people always mention “moderation” with respect to alcohol. In moderation, it adds a unique pleasure to being alive. You don’t need it, but it’s nice to have.
That's so dishonest; c'mon man - there are millions (likely billions) of people who enjoy a drink, I am rather confident you have absolutely no sorry given for the extreme vast majority, nor it bothers you.
Plus, drinking together with food instead of on an empty stomach (as more common in more northern cultures) slows down absorption allowing more time for the liver to process the alcohol before it reaches the brain and other organs, if we are talking about a standard dosage (a glass of wine etc). Even if this is not enough for the liver (even with a glass of wine and full stomach it will not be able to process alcohol without getting overloaded), it is definitely better than binging beers on empty stomach, as less alcohol will be in circulation and reaching organs for less amount of time. But then, how often one does that matters too.
At a recent physical I was talking about this with my doctor. This can reduce the toxicity effects but actually increases the contact time and the carcinogenic impact, so might be better for your liver but have a higher cancer risk. I was like, "damn..."
This is not news, it has been known for some time. For anyone wanting to get an in-depth, balanced, and rigorous take on alcohol I can heartily recommend Drink? by David Nutt. Reading it has made me more mindful of when and why I choose to drink, and increasingly I find myself drinking less and less.
Was David Nutt the UK scientific advisor who came out and said weed, lsd, ecstasy are all far less harmful than tobacco and alcohol and was then publicly shamed and abused by the uk Media for daring to suggest such a thing?
I would think Crack Cocaine, Heroin, and Methamphetamine are similar to in harm to others (and there’s no way methamphetamine is that much less harmful to others, unless he’s not aware that smoke and production of it are toxic). I’m guessing most of that comes from it being illegal and people needing to steal to get it, so even more surprising is how harmful alcohol is to others even though it is legal. Full paper: https://www.ias.org.uk/uploads/pdf/News%20stories/dnutt-lanc...
Some of the criteria are that might fall under harm to others are:
For judging harm it's interesting how the culture and economics around a drug may chiefly determine the harm, not the substance itself. The measurable harm of different drugs varies across regions.
As far as I know.... unlike the US, the UK doesn't have a large community of dependent meth users. The level of distribution is low and if some did become available, it would probably be used by poly-drug users as an alternative/combination to other party drugs and not give much of an on-ramp to habitual use. The measurable harm would be acute health events like heart issues etc. and not the consequences of long-term use.
Take them when you need them and their benefit will surpass the risks.
Alcohol works the same way.
We know for a fact that moderate drinkers live longer than non-drinkers and heavy drinkers.
We still don't know why.
edit: most people don't want to hear the truth.
Moderate drinker live longer than non-drinkers.
It's a well known fact
For example, one study following more than 333,000 adults for about eight years found light-to-moderate drinkers were more than 20 percent less likely to die prematurely from all causes and from cardiovascular disease in particular than people who never drank at all.
When they tried to "debunk" it the only explanation they could find is that non-drinkers die prematurely because of the risks they took earlier in life.
Confirming that moderation is key, abstinence due to guilt for past behaviour and a sudden fear of death, won't solve anything.
I'm sorry if the alcoholics that took the 12 steps here are triggered by the truth, but your problems are not everyone's problems.
We have been drinking alcohol for longer than we were able to write, we still do it, because it's a social rite, it keeps people together, like a good meal, you can't simply delete it because you used to drink scotch straight from the bottle since the moment you woke up and the only solution you've found is getting a different addiction: staying clean at all costs.
"because moderate drinkers tend to be very socially advantaged," Naimi says. Moderate drinkers tend to be healthier on average because they're well-educated and more affluent, not because they're drinking a bottle of wine a week on average. "[Their] alcohol consumption ends up looking good from a health perspective because they're already healthy to begin with."
> Moderate drinkers tend to be healthier on average because they're well-educated and more affluent, not because they're drinking a bottle of wine a week on average
the point is that non-drinkers live less.
Which totally contraddict the point that non drinking is good for you.
a recent Lancet study confirms that at 2 standard units per day there is non-drinking equivalence for health risks
2 units per day it's about a pint of beer per day.
> Both can be true at once, for exactly the reason described: the causal effect goes in the other direction.
still non drinkers do not live longer on average.
which totally defeat one of the few benefits associated to not drinking, unless you don't like drinking.
even if minuscule doses of alcohol increased the risk of getting some form of cancer, I live in a big city, I already increased my risk of getting cancer 10x by simply breathing ...
And I surely don't enjoy smog and pollution as much as I enjoy beer.
If I had to eliminate one of them, I would go living in the country, where air is cleaner.
Id be interested in a source as it is my understanding that most of this research was disinformation from the alcohol industry. The small uptick in death rates at 0 alcohol consumption is due to the prevalence of people with severe illness not drinking. The illness causes both the non drinking and the increased risk of death. When this is corrected for, people who drink 0 alcohol live longest.
> Id be interested in a source as it is my understanding that most of this research was disinformation from the alcohol industry
it's independent scientific studies
alcohol industry doesn't need to convince people, they sell alcohol, people enjoy alcohol, it's not like cigarettes that stink and taste horribly and are bad for those around you,e specially kids.
The ability (which is common) to moderate oneself when drinking is associated with general better health (Modest drinkers were more educated, less obese, more active, less smoked, and had lower rates of hypertension, diabetes, and high triglycerides, proteinuria, high uric acid and high level of C-reactive protein when compared with regular drinkers)
So in general we should not look at the substance, but at the person.
non drinkers are usually people who are scared of losing self control.
heavy drinkers are usually people who cannot control themselves and did not chose abstinence.
But the solution is to learn moderation, since young age.
That's the point though. Even if this fact is true it doesn't mean that drinking is healthy for these moderate drinkers. There could be other reasons that they're living longer and that drinking is actually working against them, not for them.
> Even if this fact is true it doesn't mean that drinking is healthy for these moderate drinkers
That's not the kind of inference we can derive from the data though.
The conclusion is that, even if we know that alcohol is not good for our health, moderate drinking has not been correlated to higher mortality or shorter life span, so we can conclude that, at the time of this writing, there are no evidence that show that moderate drinking is worse than not drinking for our health.
Regardless of the causes, the data simply doesn't show any correlation whatsoever with worsening health conditions, it shows, however, a correlation with a mildly longer average life span, which has not been explained, yet.
I enjoy a cigar or pipe once in a while. I enjoy a few fingers of bourbon now and then. I've been known to put back a few bottles of Coors on the weekend.
Not once have I thought, "yup this'll make me healthier [physically]."
“life is not just about going on for years avoiding any risk at all cost.”
Very well said. Every choice we make has pros and cons. If someone wants to optimize for maximum longevity and avoid all risk factors, that’s a personal decision.
If you don’t want to follow that path, that’s fine too.
The equation is different for everyone. I have completely avoided alcohol for extended periods, and frankly, I just missed having a beer with a friend, so I decided to adjust my behavior.
Does that make me a bad person that’s going to die early?
If everything is a risk equation, we should be talking about our career choices (sitting at a desk), the risk of driving to the grocery store, living in cities is dangerous (pollution), etc.
I think it’s great for people to be informed, but the morality police squad is nauseating.
To say this is true for every human being is an assault on the field of genetics.
There are several voltage gated ion channels that are inhibited by ethanol. So ethanol can clearly be seen as a medicine in those with genetic changes in these genes that cause channel channelopathies.
And anecdotally, my grandfather drank a lot. Not an alcoholic, but he was no teetotaler, and I would often see him sneaking shots of vodka before noon. He lived was 99 with his full mental capacity.
Give me a break. Do you know my grandfather? When I said sneaking shot, it wasn’t that he was hiding it from anyone. Don’t misinterpret what I say.
How do you feel if he wasn’t alcoholic so what? That’s not relevant here the relevance is how it affected his health. He was healthy till he was 99. As well as his marriage and family life. He was a barber till was 82.
Tired of you people turning everything into a pathology.
I despise the WHO generally but this article is solid. There is too much confusion about alcohol in the medical industry. If you ask European doctors having a glass or two of wine "extends health". If you research typical government guidelines, they say a drink or two a day isn't bad or may even say it's "healthy" [1]
The facts are facts. Alcohol is a poison that wrecks havoc on your mind and body. If having one drink can decompress you after a hard days work, fine, you're not gonna get cancer. Let's just stop pretending alcohol is a solid healthy choice.
Anecdotally I know a lot of really old people who still drink. Maybe I'd know more if they didn't drink.
I know one guy who is ~90, survived cancer 3 times and attributes his survival to daily doses of Japanese Shochu.
You might be able to argue that alcohol was the cause of the cancer but I guess we'll never know.
Disclaimer: Currently not drinking even a drop.
Edit: Maybe I'd know more if they didn't drink....is a reference to the fact I read the article and I understand that statistically, there might be more old people alive because it seems like it's "statistically safer" not to drink so please, try to stay calm and stop telling me I can't understand anything about statistics...I know it's exciting to do this lately though.
The world is full of people who strongly and honestly believe anecdotes are more important than statistics and statistics are meaninglessly astrological in nature. Its a very popular set of beliefs, majority in some areas.
The problem is that how well anyone's particular life circumstances fit into a statistical model (or not) can be a very difficult thing to discern. There is a combinatorial explosion of factors that everyone is subject to, and most epidemiological statistics can address and account for a handful of them at a time. So what ends up happening is folks look at the statistics, shrug, and continue their own n=1. The best they can do is be honest with themselves about "how is that working out for you?"
The world is full of people like you who thinks that making this comment ensures you're intellectually superior to others.
I, of course, know what statistics is and how to interpret it , I'm aware drinking isn't especially good for ones health and other aspect of ones life, which is why I'm currently...not drinking.
I'm also aware how silly it is to worry about it and make absolutely claims like "No level..blah".
No level of C02 from fossil fuels is good for us anymore; However, I'm certain you'll get in your car and drive or on a plane and fly soon enough.
The point I'm trying to make is that what matters one minute often seems inconsequential the next, regardless of statistics.
For example, the WHO provides quite shocking statistics on the dangerous of food fires and other heating / cooking methods which are used in my neighborhood: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/household-a..., it freaks me out but I can't do much about it or my neighbors use of a wood stove. Should I move?
So while I think it's been obvious for sometime, alcohol is bad for ones health, smoke is also bad for ones health, is there anything really new or wise in this bulletin from the WHO, I don't think so really.
Have a read of this on the WHO's website:
FACT: Alcohol-based sanitizers are safe for everyone to use
Alcohols in the sanitizers have not been shown to create any relevant health issues. Little alcohol is absorbed into the skin, and most products contain an emollient to reduce skin dryness. Allergic contact dermatitis and bleaching of hand hair due to alcohol are very rare adverse effects. Accidental swallowing and intoxication have been described in rare cases.
So in this case, my body will adsorb alcohol, but in this case it's ok because it's on another page separate from the one we're discussing?
The next level up are people that have no actual understanding of statistics, empirical reasoning, and the weaknesses therein but have learned that if you throw certain science-y words together your arguments will tend land better.
Not what I said...however, I personally do know a lot more people who have actually died from health issues directly related to smoking: heat attacks, emphysema, lung cancer.
You don't actually know if alcohol is the cause, it might be all the other shit that we've put into the environment to, such as PFOAs, PFOS, Microplastics, air polltion and more and more...
For the people I knew, there is no doubt in my mind. Only mentioning because until people I knew died, I thought liver disease only struck as you approached your 50s/60s.
The thing they have in common is that they still have social connections, including with you. People who are alone for stretches of time have a lot more risk from falls, etc
It's possible to accept the risk of alcohol as being worth it. I do when I choose to drink. But it's always going to be worse than not drinking, ceteris paribus. If you're able to replace the drinking sessions with tea, or a game, that's probably better for health. Maybe that's not possible, maybe there's something unique about the effect of alcohol, even in small quantities.
It gets worse where people get issues and they start looking for some diet supplements or pills for "better liver" ,"concentration problems" or whatever else.
When first thing they should do is stop drinking alcohol.
In the reddit thread about article there was someone who could not connect the dots that after drinking alcohol they would have hangover the next day.
> In the reddit thread about article there was someone who could not connect the dots that after drinking alcohol they would have hangover the next day.
I know enough alcoholics who have similar issues connecting dots such that I tend to think it is real. I mostly hangout with teatotalers, most people have a lot more contact, and so probaby haven't realized how normal it is.
> “We cannot talk about a so-called safe level of alcohol use. It doesn’t matter how much you drink – the risk to the drinker’s health starts from the first drop of any alcoholic beverage. The only thing that we can say for sure is that the more you drink, the more harmful it is – or, in other words, the less you drink, the safer it is,” explains Dr Carina Ferreira-Borges, acting Unit Lead for Noncommunicable Disease Management and Regional Advisor for Alcohol and Illicit Drugs in the WHO Regional Office for Europe.
I think that it is explicitly pushing back on that very concept.
You’d get more traction for this kind of comment if you’d taken the time to check rather than cast vague aspersions. And if you have checked, detail it here.
yes, i believe it is - simply don't use your very dubious research to tell others what they should be doing. we don't have these problems in astronomy, for example
Hold on, there is a lot of popular wisdom that thinks that small amounts of alcohol is either harmless or beneficial. Solid research on that topic absolutely is valuable.
Everyone absolutely does not know that small amounts are harmful.
Animals enjoy alcohol too, it's a beverage, it's a natural substance, there's no way that alcohol it's gonna be like cigarettes!
Hotdogs are bad for your health, do you think hotdogs and cigarettes are the same thing?
Do you really believe that alcohol is a modern addiction, like tobacco industry?
Have you ever heard that Christians drink wine because it's the blood of Jesus Christ? (who turned the water into wine BTW!)
Do you know that radical Islam prohibits alcohol because it can induce a loss of self-control?
Do you believe that radical Islam is the way to go for the future?
I really don't.
Alcohol is rooted in our ancestry, it's part of who we are, stop blaming substances, this is truly a modern take: it's the never ending bullshit of the war on drugs that started with prohibionism, it's the USA that promote the puritan way of life, while destroying the planet
more than everybody else combined and indulging in the worst possible lifestyle (eating garbage, drinking like there's no tomorrow, working to death, healthcare considered a luxury etc.), it's the same old story of Americans not understanding that their problems are absolutely not everyone's problems
The oldest verifiable brewery has been found in a prehistoric burial site in a cave near Haifa in modern-day Israel. Researchers have found residue of 13,000-year-old beer that they think might have been used for ritual feasts to honor the dead
Those who believe alcohol is a fad are simply delusional.
That is an excellent question, perhaps the benefits of those fruit juices outweigh the small amounts of harm a small amount of alcohol may create.
If was to get my random opinion without expertise, I would guess that sugar is the dominating factor as to whether fruit juice is healthy combined with your typical non-juice sugar consumption or not; given you are not deficient in some key nutrient.
But to clarify, I was just quoting the article in response to the idea that the dose is the issue. I am a software developer without any expertise in the issue.
Paracelsus believed that true anatomy could only be understood once the nourishment for each part of the body was discovered. He believed that one must therefore know the influence of the stars on these particular body parts.[59] Diseases were caused by poisons brought from the stars. However, 'poisons' were not necessarily something negative, in part because related substances interacted, but also because only the dose determined if a substance was poisonous or not.
>If having one drink can decompress you after a hard days work, fine, you're not gonna get cancer.
That would seem to contradict the headline, and content, that there's a safe level of alcohol consumption.
In fact, the WHO really takes that claim seriously -- the headline is not a simplification:
>>when it comes to alcohol consumption, there is no safe amount that does not affect health ... Alcohol causes at least seven types of cancer ... "We cannot talk about a so-called safe level of alcohol use. It doesn’t matter how much you drink – the risk to the drinker’s health starts from the first drop of any alcoholic beverage."
But yeah, I agree, in that I'm sure you can find a low enough level of alcohol consumption that can't be discerned in health outcomes. Like, 1 microliter, one time.
It sounds like your comment is more about rejecting claims that there can be a health benefit to alcohol, but the WHO is going much further than that.
Except that a) the WHO says that amount knowably increases cancer risk (and so the author would disagree with the parent's comment), and b) if you just say "it won't have harm X" while not endorsing harms you think it has, you're implying there are no harms. As long as the parent wasn't endorsing the WHO's claim of harm from that level, he's disagreeing with the thesis.
I think the challenge is really that even spices like pepper cause inflammation.
You can always find a downside to anything you ingest.
I think you’re correct, the best approach is to explain “safe limits”.
Personally, I think it’s fine if people smoke, drink, etc until their heart is content. That said; it’s also why I’m opposed to socialized medicine. Almost everyone I know on social medicine didn’t take care of themselves (only a maybe one couldnt take care of themselves).
The challenge with socialized medicine is that we should now push to ban alcohol, logically.
The reason its effectively impossible to ban alcohol is because the precursors are sugar, water, and yeast. It's trivial to make alcohol even in small apartments.
I had to google the meaning of "socialized medicine" (no I don't live in the US). My first thought was that maybe it meant "getting better thanks to emotional support from other people", but Wikipedia had this to say about "socialized medicine":
>> More recently, American conservative critics of health care reform have attempted to broaden the term by applying it to any publicly funded system.
Fascinating how different political groups literally do not speak the same language. I now assume you mean that all people should pay 100 % for their own health care needs since people only have themselves to blame if they need health care?
Though I think some of the political proponents have shifted their SEO terms to “universal healthcare” in recent years after they found the term confusing.
> I now assume you mean that all people should pay 100 % for their own health care needs since people only have themselves to blame if they need health care?
I’m not saying one way or the other what I think. I’m saying the logical conclusion of paying for everyone’s medical bills is that you create regulation to try to lower said bills. By definition, this restricts freedoms, which I’m opposed to.
I dunno, is it a solid article? They say "Risks start from the first drop" and I am having a a hard time imagining how they could prove that, regardless of how likely it is. Looks like fearmongering.
I'm sympathetic to the idea that everyone should stop drinking. I'm not a fan of mind-altering drugs and it makes for boring conversation. But we need to get used to the idea that literally nothing is safe. Living kills us all eventually. The argument against alcohol needs to be that an alcohol-free life is of higher quality.
If we're going to discourage people from doing unsafe things, are we planning to disband the army? There is no safe amount of time to spend in a moving vehicle either, those things are dangerous. Working a day job is no good for people's health. Safe doesn't mean no harm; that is impossible. And the question is always whether the benefit outweighs the cost.
If this is true, the medical community is actively causing harm. Many compounded or suspended children's medicines contain alcohol. Many do not have alcohol free alternatives.
Even if there are risks you have to compare the risks. Would I have a child drink a small amount of alcohol for some life saving drug? Just like how you drive to work despite there being a risk in driving.
So what is the risk of damaging your life from 4 drinks a week compared to risks of getting killed by someone else walking to work every day (in the US with its drivers and SUVs)? Less alcohol is better, perhaps, but we live past our savings while drinking all the same.
What your example misses, is that alternatives exist to alcohol for most medicines. There's no reason for most of these medications to include alcohol.
> If this is true, the medical community is actively causing harm.
That’s kind of a bizarre way of phrasing it. Yes, the medical community actively causes lesser harms, with the goals of preventing greater harms. Radiation therapy and chemotherapy, for example, are extremely harmful! Yet we use them as cancer treatments because the cancer we are treating with them is probably more harmful than the treatment.
Radiation therapy and chemotherapy are extreme examples, but this analysis is done across medicine with lesser treatments as well—and yes, we change the way we treat people as our understanding of the risks and benefits of various treatments changes.
With alcohol, its often times added to medicines as an inactive ingredient with little to no therapeutic value. It also has alternatives.
My main point is that's it's hypocritical to say one drop is dangerous and then have a myriad of children's meds containing it when alternative ingredients exist.
> My main point is that's it's hypocritical to say one drop is dangerous and then have a myriad of children's meds containing it when alternative ingredients exist.
You're miles away from making that point in a way that I can understand.
All medicine have risks, the added alcohol is a tiny extra risk that the medical community thinks it is worth taking because it has benefits that are greater than the risks. For example, other chemicals that could be used as a substitute may be worse or poorly tested.
Medicine containing alcohol often comes with a few more counter-indications because of it, plus it limits the sales to people who wish to maintain strict abstinence, like Muslims. If they keep the alcohol, it is probably for a good reason.
It is completely different from recommending alcohol itself.
"If they keep the alcohol, it is probably for a good reason."
Can you name medications that require alcohol vs an alternative? Most of the alternatives are innocent like glycerin, or similar to food preservatives.
My main point is that there is hypocrisy. Saying that one drop is dangerous yet having it be heavily prevalent children's meds... one of these isn't right.
Acetaminophen is cytotoxic and causes liver damage. No amount of it is safe. Yet we have children's tylenol.
Why? Because the body heals whatever miniscule damage occurs with small amounts. The trade off is one which we decide to leave to people to make with their judgment.
> If you ask European doctors having a glass or two of wine "extends health".
but it's not because of the alcohol, why wine is "good", it because we mostly relax with it, which reduces stress levels. everything else is bad, at least that it the perception of the last 2-4 years in germany.
this article is doing an even worse job though: there are a lot of people i the comments that are convinced that if they do not drink at all, they will live longer.
They won't.
> The facts are facts. Alcohol is a poison that wrecks havoc on your mind and body
So are almonds
If you eat 20 apples including the seeds, you die instantly.
But so are also soda beverages
but US citizens drink an estimated 154 liters per capita every year
On the subject of decompressing from daily stress.. I would humbly submit that a small (just above psychoactive threshold) puff of vaporized (not combusted) THC extract or other legal cannabinoid, is a good harm reduction measure, compared to alcohol. Especially if it eliminates the urge to drink or seek other more risky hedonic outlets.
I don’t think you’re right, every generation since modernity seems equal in this regard, the latest generations don’t seem special.
But, I like this phrase “the generational zeitgeist is ostentatious abnegation”, so much that I’m going to use it in the future and pretend I do believe it. Thank you
Definitely an interesting turn of phrase. Ironically, I think you've helped me understand why I might be wrong about some of the metaverse hype: while I steadfastly believe that people prefer the real world, moving consumption to a fake world (e.g., buying an NFT handbag for your digital avatar) would fall into this category of behavior. In effect, paying as much to own a fake good as the real thing is loudly saying, "Look at what I could have purchased if I were less virtuous."
The thinking is backwards on this. They state there is no scientific safe drinking level. They even compare it to radiation. The goal is to establish an unsafe level. it's like saying there is no safe speed to drive a car - sure that's technically true, but worthless to say.
And they make zero comment about genetic risk. That’s what matters, genetic risk, as well as the total amount of exposure to carcinogenic’s. It’s just a worthless dumb thing to say.
There has been some suggestions that 1-2 drinks is the optimal (extends health etc..). So, this clears up any confusion on that topic. There are many things that are risky but make life worth living, the previous guidance made it appear you could enjoy life (1-2 drinks) with actual upsides which unfortunately turns out not to be the case of drinking.
It is also beneficial because various crap gets delivered, people move fast to where they are needed and generally stuff gets done. Some paramedics even get so brazen as to fly helicopters to the rescue.
It's not about drawing the line, it's about quantifying the impact.
I think this is what people don't get about the study. The study is not saying no one should drink. It's not saying that the risks of drinking outweigh the benefit. It's saying that for any amount of alcohol, ingesting it, on aggregate, decreases life expectancy. Nothing more. It's a measurement of the increase of risk, which can then be combined and contrasted with other measurements and help make informed decisions.
You draw the line however you want. You now have more information to make that decision.
and according to the WHO one particulate from that exhaust increases your risk from pollution above absolute zero, hence driving is not safe when it comes to your health.
Tire particulate is a particularly nasty form of pollution that most are unaware of. EVs aren't particularly better at reducing tread wear (some say it's a bit higher due to instant-torque at 0 RPM).
You seem confident that you can categorize any activity. what about: strolling along a pathway, hiking in the footlhills, scrambling a mountain, ice climbing, base jumping? At what level the rock climbing rating system do we inflect from indirect to direct risk?
Assuming arguendo that you're not talking about repetitive stress injuries to the body or brain from overdoing physical or stressful activity, and just the acute harm from accidents, they're pretty much the same as driving. The correlation to accidents does not mean the activity is dangerous: it's the accident that's dangerous.
I object to the conflation of quantitative risk of experiencing an incidental event with the qualitative risk posed by a voluntary event.
I think overall it is likely slight net negative. Just from things like particulate pollution and siting not moving for a period. Also the UV light from sun possibly.
Not that there isn't acceptable tradeoffs with what is attained by driving.
> They state there is no scientific safe drinking level. They even compare it to radiation. The goal is to establish an unsafe level. it's like saying there is no safe speed to drive a car - sure that's technically true, but worthless to say.
Which is ironic, because, while most people use the "Linear no-threshold" model for radiation, we know that small amounts of radiation are actually beneficial.
The most charitable reason I can think of for why people still use the LNT model is because it's simple and robust. But that doesn't mean that it's the most accurate understanding that we have.
> Which is ironic, because, while most people use the "Linear no-threshold" model for radiation, we know that small amounts of radiation are actually beneficial.
How could ionizing radiation be beneficial? Unless the argument is exposure to ultraviolet in order to get Vitamin D, I can’t imagine ionizing radiation to be beneficial in any way.
Edit:
> The good includes abundant evidence showing increased 1) physiologic performance, 2) immune competence, 3) health, and 4) mean lifespan.
From the article in the comment below. Apparently in very low doses it stimulates the immune system and healthy cell reconstruction.
From the BMJ *British Medical Journal). "Analyses of the dose of alcohol consumed showed that 2.5–14.9 g alcohol (about ≤1 drink) per day was protective for all five outcomes compared with no alcohol (table 2⇑). For coronary heart disease outcomes, all levels of intake >2.5 g/day had similar degrees of risk reduction. " https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d671
Meanwhile, there isn't clear evidence that there is no safe level of radiation. Biological systems are buffered in all kinds of ways, including against low doses of radiation, mutagens, and even... acids
! (Contrary to modern health biz ideas "oh your body is so acidic, drink this basic water to fix it!")
When doing this analysis though be sure to note that scientists studying this use 10g drinks, which is 12.5mL of ethanol, one tallboy of 6.5% beer is therefore about 2.5 drinks.
I might be wrong here, but I have never heard the claim that 2 beers might be good for your health. I have heard that with wine, but that's not a claim that alcohol is good for your health.
"I might be wrong here, but I have never heard the claim that 2 beers might be good for your health."
What we see - empirically - is that light/moderate drinkers have better overall health outcomes than both heavy drinkers and people who consume zero alcohol.
The outcomes of the heavy drinkers seem self-evident so we don't need to bother with that ... it is the relative better health vs. non-drinkers that is interesting.
One conclusion that many people draw, and which you are alluding to, is that alcohol has properties that are beneficial in small doses.
However, a much simpler and more explanatory conclusion is that in developed, western (or, "global north") countries there is nobody that isn't drinking and the individuals that consume zero alcohol are doing so because it really affects them, or bothers them, etc. They are less robust, generally, and therefore have health outcomes that are worse than light/moderate drinkers.
I draw your attention to the fact that NFL players have lower all-cause mortality and live longer lives than the general public. Is that because violent collisions and football playing, generally, magically helps them ?
Driving may be a necessity while drinking is rarely an obligation. Also driving may cause instant harm while, drinking may cause a very much delayed harm. So, by knowing that not driving or not drinking are the safest choice I can choose to skip having a single drink and avoid driving if I don’t have to, thus completely minimizing the risk.
Sure but you can basically play this game forever and arrive at a very bad, but safe quality of life.
Funny enough though driving is by far worse for your health than moderate or light drinking, and it’s even more insidious than drinking because not only do that negative effects take a long time to manifest, but they’re couched inside of a “necessity”.
Why would choosing a safer travel method or avoiding unnecessary drives ruin the quality of life? I am not proposing to quit living a life, only adjusting the methods of living. We obviously don’t share the same values regarding the quality of life.
I think it’s more funny you choose a rhetoric that suits your lifestyle and your needs, and dismiss that it might be helpful for people who don’t find alcohol culture appealing.
Consider having to decide between a 20 min trip by car, or 1 hour trip by train, and the car driving has 100x serious accident probability. However, you save 40 minutes if you drive. Likely, driving doesn't take 40 min off your life expectancy. And even if it did, you save the minutes now, and not at the end of your life.
> Consider having to decide between a 20 min trip by car, or 1 hour trip by train
Couple issues with this. First why not a 20 minute trip by car with fees for parking and all that versus a 20 minute trip by train? Depending on where you live this can be your currently daily experience. It could also be anyones daily experience if we just decided we wanted to do that.
The second issue is that simple comparing the surface level time-by-transit misses most of the particulars that matter. And you are also mistakenly applying individual experience with aggregate experience i.e. 40 minutes saved for the individual but in aggregate many people actually do die because of the 100x serious injury probability.
I do not agree with your analogy or theirs. First most people have to drive at some point in their lives. Driving is not a choice we get to make so the associated risks are not something we can deal with. While it is debatable if you can avoid drinking socially many people do for a variety of reasons. The article is fairly clear. Drinking alcohol will increase cancer risks. And like someone eloquently said above you the real critique is not it is stupid to point out drinking is an avoidable carcinogen but it is our free choice as people to make that trade off knowing you might enjoy it. I think the point about radiation is a better comparison but again like driving it is unavoidable to a degree. We will all go outside more in our lives then is recommended. Once again drinking is not unavoidable. I don't think the article makes a worthless argument and I believe your analogies are false comparisons but I still take your point. I agree drinking is not something people want to avoid so it is certainly up to each person to choose their own acceptable risk but honestly that is more a personal choice that science can advise then a magic number we can all follow.
They don't give a safe number of cigarettes, do they? There probably is a number that's minimally harmful, that lowers with age.
Alcohol has numerically similar numbers of cancer cases, and cancer is just one aspect. Now it is less, and we can argue about how widespread the use is ect. However, it cases 1/3 of the cases, heart disease, mental health problems.
Are you a drinker? Especially since quitting, I've noticed a lot of drinkers get incredibly defensive against something that seems very rational and well supported by evidence.
as a continued social drinker, or more general doer of anything, i've noticed that anyone who no longer does that thing is typically quite vocal and negative towards said thing.
Set aside alcohol for a minute; this article is saying that because the absolute risk of an activity is not zero, the activity is inheriently unsafe. That's not true, not an appropriate strategy for decision making, and most importantly not an effective way to influence behaviours. This is the definition of perfect as the enemy of better.
>> i've noticed that anyone who no longer does that thing is typically quite vocal and negative towards said thing.
Well ya? Is that not self-evident?
See, there's this thing I enjoy very much, but I was forced to stop because of evidence of the negative consequences. Now, since I am a kind person, I can share the knowledge of those negative consequences so may be you could avoid them, too.
Said another way, if I were not negative to said activity that I enjoy, I would still be doing it. And if I were indifferent to the well-being of others, I wouldn't be vocal/share.
I drink maybe 4 drinks total a month. I get where you're going with that though. There is actually data out there on smoking, and having a cigar once in a while isn't really more unsafe than sitting by the camp fire. Your body also recovers itself in most regards rather quickly after chronic smoking (months). I'm not a smoker, and it's better not to smoke because it's super addictive, but having a smoke is like having a drink, not unsafe per say. I'm more worried about sugar than alcohol.
> The only thing that we can say for sure is that the more you drink, the more harmful it is – or, in other words, the less you drink, the safer it is.
I wish the article would tell us more about this curve. How much does my risk increase for each drink I have?
From the BBC article: "Men who are dependent on alcohol or drugs are six or seven times more likely to be involved in domestic abuse against women than others, according to an extensive new study."
That makes sense--alcohol decreases inhibition. It makes you do things that maybe you were inclined to do, but wouldn't do sober. (That is part of why people drink alcohol in the first place.)
You’ve also got to be pretty miserable to get in that state in the first place. Maybe they are victims of abuse themselves or have untreated trauma/other mental health conditions.
> dependent on alcohol or drugs are six or seven times more likely
NB: this does not mean actively using. Dependency creates significant stress when sober, which almost certainly amplifies violent dispositions. Hence my GP's comment.
> That makes sense--alcohol decreases inhibition. It makes you do things that maybe you were inclined to do, but wouldn't do sober. (That is part of why people drink alcohol in the first place.)
I mean, from the same article you have, they bring up the same point I did:
> While undoubtedly there is some link between alcohol and drugs and domestic abuse, this research should be treated with some caution, said Dame Vera Baird, victims' commissioner for England and Wales.
She said: "Many perpetrators who commit domestic violence while drunk will also be violent and controlling while sober.
"And many perpetrators of domestic violence and coercive control do not have a drink or drug problem, and therefore it would be a mistake to divert resources from domestic violence perpetrator programmes to tackling drink and drugs misuse."
Alcohol problems are not the same thing of alcohol consumption.
Also:
Scotland's alcohol consumption is among the highest in the world, according to World Health Organization data; on average, Scots consume the equivalent of more than 13 liters (3.4 gallons) of pure alcohol a year, about 40 percent more than Americans (2.4 gallons)
We in Italy consume less than 7 liters per year (less than 1.8 gallons).
Americans are much more compliant now, not to mention health and socially conscious. For example, the culture of alcohol use has disparate impacts on black and brown communities: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2771773/ ("African Americans and Hispanics bear a disproportionately greater burden of alcohol-related health problems compared to whites, as evidenced by higher rates of liver cirrhosis, death rates due to cirrhosis, and rates of overall alcohol-related mortality.") That is true even though, for example, black Americans begin drinking later and drink less than white Americans: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3758406/.
If you look at the articles I linked, it's actually the opposite. Black people are almost twice as likely to report not drinking as white people. Alcohol use also increases with socioeconomic status: https://www.alcoholrehabguide.org/blog/socioeconomic-status-....
that's probably because drinking in the US is very expensive.
which is a form of prohibitionism in itself, but didn't stop people from binge drinking.
Here in Italy, where wine is very cheap, you don't see people drinking like the Americans do, especially not adult people.
Kids, maybe, sometimes, we have a problem with young people binge drinking, mostly because they gathered those habits from American culture which massively influence their daily content consumption.
Back in the day the American culture my generation has been exposed to was very different about who drank on screen and why.
It sounds like you're trolling, and that you're not seriously proposing a return to prohibition, but rather using it as a snarky frame with which to criticize unrelated beliefs.
I'm not trolling. I think America would be better if people didn't drink. I drink sometimes, but I also eat fried foods and skip the gym and do other things I'd acknowledge people shouldn't do.
Nor am I criticizing unrelated beliefs. I don't disagree with SJWs that we live in a society dominated by the attitudes and culture of white European Americans--including their drinking culture. I typically disagree with them on whether that's a bad thing, or how we should frame that for kids, or how that should affect legal relations between people. But I don't disagree with the notion that aspects of American culture adapted from Europeans--in this case drinking culture, but I'd also throw parenting culture in there, and individualism--can have negative impacts on minority groups.
Are you saying prohibition is worth another attempt? Because we're currently in our 52nd year of the official start of the War on Drugs [1], which is just Prohibition by another name. Unofficially, the War on Drugs goes back much further, and it's a war that the government has been losing badly since the start [2]. Even per-capita, we're the biggest consumers of illegal drugs in the world [3]. So I'd be curious to hear what evidence of compliance you could give, which would outweigh the evidence of non-compliance going back to at least the Nixon administration.
That would be fine if drinking didn't affect people's ability to satisfy their social obligations (as coworkers, parents, friends, etc.) but that's not the case.
Fascinating that you keep getting downvoted for stating completely obvious observations. I would have thought your reasonable explanations could convince this supposed 'rational' crowd but apparently not.
Drinking sometimes for some people impairs their ability to meet their social obligations. Prohibition was an unmitigated disaster and you have to be a special kind of idiot to think trying it again would produce a different result. People like to drink alcohol.
Prohibition is the go-to example of banning alcohol not working but I think this is blurry thinking. In no other area of policy would you just point to one big example of something not working and thereby declare the whole approach off limits.
The whole argument seems like a discussion-ending cover for people's emotional attachment to alcohol. It completely doesn't engage with the cost-benefit analysis of how alcohol affects the functioning of society at large or navigate any of those tradeoffs.
> However, latest available data indicate that half of all alcohol-attributable cancers in the WHO European Region are caused by “light” and “moderate” alcohol consumption – less than 1.5 litres of wine or less than 3.5 litres of beer or less than 450 millilitres of spirits per week
> 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
If you drink the average every day, you will spend a large part of your days inebriated. And if you don't drink the average every day, you will be deeply drunk every few days.
It's completely unreasonable to call that level of consumption "light".
i'd really like to know where all of these people that can't seem to handle a glass of beer, quite probably with something to eat, without freaking out are coming from?
1 beer is not going to make anybody inebriated for a large part of their day. 3-4 beers will put someone into a good buzz but most will not be “deeply drunk” from that.
And again, this is the UPPER BOUND. not the average as you say
Fair enough, ~5% would be more accurate I guess. 16 oz at 5% is still a relatively small amount of alcohol in most cultures that historically consume it.
"Desitka" ("10" meaning 10 plato degrees of sugar content before fermentation) is very popular in Czech Republic. It usually has 3.5% - 4% ABV. Beer consumption in Czech Republic is about 130l per person per year. That's 0.35l per person per day. It used to be closer to 0.5l but the average ABV % probably went up so alcohol consumption stayed about the same.
>Half a litre of beer a day is considered "light"?
It's very light - in many (most not zero-tolerance) country is legal to drive. One beer is around 0.04-0.05% for a grown up man, around 2h after consumption it should be below 0.02%.
Human liver has enzymes to metabolize alcohol for energy, which implicitly makes this claim questionable. If we have it, why not be putting it to work?
I wonder how the data is treated statistically. If 99% of millionaires have consumed alcohol, does consuming alcohol increase the chance of becoming a millionaire!?
Alright well you can call me names or you can talk about it. Do you have the intelligence and understanding to have a discussion or do you just want to screech insults at people on the internet?
Actually, only some populations developed the gene mutation to increase the alcohol people can tolerate, but I can't find the number now. Try navigating from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_tolerance to see if you are more lucky.
This reads like a press release without any substantial discussion or references. COVID has died down...is WHO looking for the next thing to keep itself on the radar?
Compartmentalization. Plenty of stimulant and H and other drug abusers in tech.
Sugar and alcohol are addictive and addictions are irrational and you can't use rational objective thought to get out of a situation that is inherently irrational and subjective, like addiction.
Essentially zero H users, for example, have never heard the news that H is bad for them. Can't just concentrate hard enough to get out of an addiction, they don't work that way. So it is with alcohol, sugar, carb binging in general, etc.
Cite needed LOL. They're great for weight gain, which is not much of a medical necessity in the current year although there are special situations (cancer patients, etc)
If you don't eat an essential nutrient (vitamins, minerals, etc) you'll eventually get sick and die. If you don't eat a very high carb diet you'll ... be healthier and have better blood test results? Nobody never died from having a single digit A1c blood test result or a blood glucose no longer going up to 250 anymore LOL.
Do we have any evidence that low carb diets have a positive effect on longevity compared to these diets?
Compared to the Standard American Diet, low carb may be far better as it can eliminates refined carbs with no nutritional value, but the optimal diet may include a moderate amount of carbs from healthy whole food sources.
I’m actually following a low carb diet myself for almost 1 year and agree it has benefits, but think ultimately it’s place is as a stepping stone. I will probably begin to incorporate healthy whole foods as I am exercising more than I was when I started and it’s hard to get enough calories.
i've drunk a fair amount of zero-alcohol beer, and the answer to your question is "yes", for reasons of flavour (alcohol changes this) and effect
("beer. it makes you drunk" - advertising slogan thought up by kingsley amis, i believe)
at least for me, depends. i don't like the way alcohol-free beer tastes -- it's just not the same.
sometimes i drink a nice whiskey because i love the taste (specially when paired with a nice cigar), but sometimes i drink to get tipsy because... well, it's fun for me.
it's like the difference between normal cake and cake infused with thc: i will eat cake for dessert, but sometimes, ingesting infused cake is more fun.
384 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 301 ms ] threadIn any case, those kind of "research" is for modern americans (and people taking their cues from anglosaxon culture) , who are already conditioned in such hysteria - which is funny in the country eating some of the worst quality food in the Western world, cooked the worst ways, in the worst portions, and with the worst mass production integredients. Or perhaps an overcorrection.
The average Italian, for example, should, and definitely, would just laught this off.
In the end, it's less about health and living life to the fullest, and more about a modern hysteria based on fear of living (or fear of the thought of our eventual demise, which is the same).
I also don't need carbonara, pizza, gelato, the beach, snowboarding, my friends, my family to survive...
I absolutely respect people who drink in a measured way to enrich their life, instead of trying to maximize their lifespan by some minuscule amount.
If you have religious reservations, please use your energy to fight off islamists who deal drugs, take bribes and marry with young children. Those sin more than people who indulge in a glass of wine or two.
"everything in moderation including moderation" is a good adage to go by, imho.
It is like a robber - robbing $100 when you are sleeping and giving $50 when you visit them. Its the unawareness that you are being robbed of hundred makes him look like a good guy.
note: I do not mind your downvote.. but if you are downvoting - please schedule a bloodwork and take a look at your numbers.
animals enjoy alcohol too[1], it's not simply cultural and it's not a "west only" thing.
> all the while alcohol is imposing higher and higher tax on you.
assuming it's true, I very much prefer the alcohol tax than the 80 hours work week and only 7 days/year of holidays tax
[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-alcoholics...
Don't worry they'll tell you.
There’s no reason you can’t have a joyful life without alcohol. The biggest joys in life don’t directly correlate with it.
But, a good glass of wine with a nice meal adds something beautiful. The dinner parties where everyone is 3 glasses in produce some of the most memorable, happy, joyful conversations of my life.
There’s a reason that throughout history people always mention “moderation” with respect to alcohol. In moderation, it adds a unique pleasure to being alive. You don’t need it, but it’s nice to have.
as the old adage says: In medio stat virtus
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/in_medio_stat_virtus
We don't think about you at all
we don't even drink that much, compared to other countries.
we simply enjoy it, even if it doesn't make our life longer, like many other activities that are not even enjoyable.
https://ourworldindata.org/alcohol-consumption
I assume he was sacked for producing such a poor data visualization, or just the political "data" behind it?
Some of the criteria are that might fall under harm to others are:
Crime
Environmental damage
Family adversities
Economic cost
Community
As far as I know.... unlike the US, the UK doesn't have a large community of dependent meth users. The level of distribution is low and if some did become available, it would probably be used by poly-drug users as an alternative/combination to other party drugs and not give much of an on-ramp to habitual use. The measurable harm would be acute health events like heart issues etc. and not the consequences of long-term use.
To get a taste of the person before reading the book:
https://youtu.be/bASaIJMxMqI
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34751649
It's like drugs.
Take too many pills, you die.
Take them when you need them and their benefit will surpass the risks.
Alcohol works the same way.
We know for a fact that moderate drinkers live longer than non-drinkers and heavy drinkers.
We still don't know why.
edit: most people don't want to hear the truth.
Moderate drinker live longer than non-drinkers.
It's a well known fact
For example, one study following more than 333,000 adults for about eight years found light-to-moderate drinkers were more than 20 percent less likely to die prematurely from all causes and from cardiovascular disease in particular than people who never drank at all.
When they tried to "debunk" it the only explanation they could find is that non-drinkers die prematurely because of the risks they took earlier in life.
Confirming that moderation is key, abstinence due to guilt for past behaviour and a sudden fear of death, won't solve anything.
I'm sorry if the alcoholics that took the 12 steps here are triggered by the truth, but your problems are not everyone's problems.
We have been drinking alcohol for longer than we were able to write, we still do it, because it's a social rite, it keeps people together, like a good meal, you can't simply delete it because you used to drink scotch straight from the bottle since the moment you woke up and the only solution you've found is getting a different addiction: staying clean at all costs.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/22/4714163...
the point is that non-drinkers live less.
Which totally contraddict the point that non drinking is good for you.
a recent Lancet study confirms that at 2 standard units per day there is non-drinking equivalence for health risks
2 units per day it's about a pint of beer per day.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
still non drinkers do not live longer on average.
which totally defeat one of the few benefits associated to not drinking, unless you don't like drinking.
even if minuscule doses of alcohol increased the risk of getting some form of cancer, I live in a big city, I already increased my risk of getting cancer 10x by simply breathing ...
And I surely don't enjoy smog and pollution as much as I enjoy beer.
If I had to eliminate one of them, I would go living in the country, where air is cleaner.
it's independent scientific studies
alcohol industry doesn't need to convince people, they sell alcohol, people enjoy alcohol, it's not like cigarettes that stink and taste horribly and are bad for those around you,e specially kids.
The ability (which is common) to moderate oneself when drinking is associated with general better health (Modest drinkers were more educated, less obese, more active, less smoked, and had lower rates of hypertension, diabetes, and high triglycerides, proteinuria, high uric acid and high level of C-reactive protein when compared with regular drinkers)
So in general we should not look at the substance, but at the person.
non drinkers are usually people who are scared of losing self control.
heavy drinkers are usually people who cannot control themselves and did not chose abstinence.
But the solution is to learn moderation, since young age.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-11427-x
That's the point though. Even if this fact is true it doesn't mean that drinking is healthy for these moderate drinkers. There could be other reasons that they're living longer and that drinking is actually working against them, not for them.
That's not the kind of inference we can derive from the data though.
The conclusion is that, even if we know that alcohol is not good for our health, moderate drinking has not been correlated to higher mortality or shorter life span, so we can conclude that, at the time of this writing, there are no evidence that show that moderate drinking is worse than not drinking for our health.
Regardless of the causes, the data simply doesn't show any correlation whatsoever with worsening health conditions, it shows, however, a correlation with a mildly longer average life span, which has not been explained, yet.
Not once have I thought, "yup this'll make me healthier [physically]."
Nobody does everything they do because they think "this is good for my health".
We usually avoid stuff that is very bad for our health, but life is not just about going on for years avoiding any risk at all cost.
Unless you are American, you pretend to like the monk life and then eat garbage directly from the garbage can
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/26/opinion/food-nutrition-he...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/opinion/sway-kara-swisher...
Very well said. Every choice we make has pros and cons. If someone wants to optimize for maximum longevity and avoid all risk factors, that’s a personal decision.
If you don’t want to follow that path, that’s fine too.
The equation is different for everyone. I have completely avoided alcohol for extended periods, and frankly, I just missed having a beer with a friend, so I decided to adjust my behavior.
Does that make me a bad person that’s going to die early?
If everything is a risk equation, we should be talking about our career choices (sitting at a desk), the risk of driving to the grocery store, living in cities is dangerous (pollution), etc.
I think it’s great for people to be informed, but the morality police squad is nauseating.
There are several voltage gated ion channels that are inhibited by ethanol. So ethanol can clearly be seen as a medicine in those with genetic changes in these genes that cause channel channelopathies.
And anecdotally, my grandfather drank a lot. Not an alcoholic, but he was no teetotaler, and I would often see him sneaking shots of vodka before noon. He lived was 99 with his full mental capacity.
(inb4 no true scotsman)
How do you feel if he wasn’t alcoholic so what? That’s not relevant here the relevance is how it affected his health. He was healthy till he was 99. As well as his marriage and family life. He was a barber till was 82.
Tired of you people turning everything into a pathology.
Sneak generally means do something stealthily. Pretty easy to misinterpret, hell I'm still not sure what you meant by "sneak" besides hiding it.
The facts are facts. Alcohol is a poison that wrecks havoc on your mind and body. If having one drink can decompress you after a hard days work, fine, you're not gonna get cancer. Let's just stop pretending alcohol is a solid healthy choice.
1 - https://www.boston.com/news/health/2020/07/15/men-should-lim...
I know one guy who is ~90, survived cancer 3 times and attributes his survival to daily doses of Japanese Shochu.
You might be able to argue that alcohol was the cause of the cancer but I guess we'll never know.
Disclaimer: Currently not drinking even a drop.
Edit: Maybe I'd know more if they didn't drink....is a reference to the fact I read the article and I understand that statistically, there might be more old people alive because it seems like it's "statistically safer" not to drink so please, try to stay calm and stop telling me I can't understand anything about statistics...I know it's exciting to do this lately though.
I, of course, know what statistics is and how to interpret it , I'm aware drinking isn't especially good for ones health and other aspect of ones life, which is why I'm currently...not drinking.
I'm also aware how silly it is to worry about it and make absolutely claims like "No level..blah".
No level of C02 from fossil fuels is good for us anymore; However, I'm certain you'll get in your car and drive or on a plane and fly soon enough.
The point I'm trying to make is that what matters one minute often seems inconsequential the next, regardless of statistics.
For example, the WHO provides quite shocking statistics on the dangerous of food fires and other heating / cooking methods which are used in my neighborhood: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/household-a..., it freaks me out but I can't do much about it or my neighbors use of a wood stove. Should I move?
So while I think it's been obvious for sometime, alcohol is bad for ones health, smoke is also bad for ones health, is there anything really new or wise in this bulletin from the WHO, I don't think so really.
Have a read of this on the WHO's website:
FACT: Alcohol-based sanitizers are safe for everyone to use
Alcohols in the sanitizers have not been shown to create any relevant health issues. Little alcohol is absorbed into the skin, and most products contain an emollient to reduce skin dryness. Allergic contact dermatitis and bleaching of hand hair due to alcohol are very rare adverse effects. Accidental swallowing and intoxication have been described in rare cases.
So in this case, my body will adsorb alcohol, but in this case it's ok because it's on another page separate from the one we're discussing?
Yes look at the current world, media, and western societies
I know someone who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day who is almost 100 years old. Smoking is good or you!
On an individual basis, no. But on a macro, yes. We can pretty directly attribute a large % of liver-related deaths directly to alcohol.
I just have a real problem with talking in absolutes.
When first thing they should do is stop drinking alcohol.
In the reddit thread about article there was someone who could not connect the dots that after drinking alcohol they would have hangover the next day.
To me it sounds like you have been trolled.
- Paracelsus
I think that it is explicitly pushing back on that very concept.
or find another job.
what would you chose?
But "research" as this paper here are mostly useless.
They are good for nothing.
It's like researching the fact that "there is no amount of soap that can be considered harmless for the environment".
Yes, we know, and now that everyone knows that we all know, what about "we don't care and we'll keep using soap responsibly"?
p.s.: replace "soap" with "human activity" and the paradox will probably be more evident.
Everyone absolutely does not know that small amounts are harmful.
THEY ABSOLUTELY ARE NOT THE SAME THING!
Animals enjoy alcohol too, it's a beverage, it's a natural substance, there's no way that alcohol it's gonna be like cigarettes!
Hotdogs are bad for your health, do you think hotdogs and cigarettes are the same thing?
Do you really believe that alcohol is a modern addiction, like tobacco industry?
Have you ever heard that Christians drink wine because it's the blood of Jesus Christ? (who turned the water into wine BTW!)
Do you know that radical Islam prohibits alcohol because it can induce a loss of self-control?
Do you believe that radical Islam is the way to go for the future?
I really don't.
Alcohol is rooted in our ancestry, it's part of who we are, stop blaming substances, this is truly a modern take: it's the never ending bullshit of the war on drugs that started with prohibionism, it's the USA that promote the puritan way of life, while destroying the planet more than everybody else combined and indulging in the worst possible lifestyle (eating garbage, drinking like there's no tomorrow, working to death, healthcare considered a luxury etc.), it's the same old story of Americans not understanding that their problems are absolutely not everyone's problems
The oldest verifiable brewery has been found in a prehistoric burial site in a cave near Haifa in modern-day Israel. Researchers have found residue of 13,000-year-old beer that they think might have been used for ritual feasts to honor the dead
Those who believe alcohol is a fad are simply delusional.
If was to get my random opinion without expertise, I would guess that sugar is the dominating factor as to whether fruit juice is healthy combined with your typical non-juice sugar consumption or not; given you are not deficient in some key nutrient.
But to clarify, I was just quoting the article in response to the idea that the dose is the issue. I am a software developer without any expertise in the issue.
Paracelsus believed that true anatomy could only be understood once the nourishment for each part of the body was discovered. He believed that one must therefore know the influence of the stars on these particular body parts.[59] Diseases were caused by poisons brought from the stars. However, 'poisons' were not necessarily something negative, in part because related substances interacted, but also because only the dose determined if a substance was poisonous or not.
— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus
That would seem to contradict the headline, and content, that there's a safe level of alcohol consumption.
In fact, the WHO really takes that claim seriously -- the headline is not a simplification:
>>when it comes to alcohol consumption, there is no safe amount that does not affect health ... Alcohol causes at least seven types of cancer ... "We cannot talk about a so-called safe level of alcohol use. It doesn’t matter how much you drink – the risk to the drinker’s health starts from the first drop of any alcoholic beverage."
But yeah, I agree, in that I'm sure you can find a low enough level of alcohol consumption that can't be discerned in health outcomes. Like, 1 microliter, one time.
It sounds like your comment is more about rejecting claims that there can be a health benefit to alcohol, but the WHO is going much further than that.
You can always find a downside to anything you ingest.
I think you’re correct, the best approach is to explain “safe limits”.
Personally, I think it’s fine if people smoke, drink, etc until their heart is content. That said; it’s also why I’m opposed to socialized medicine. Almost everyone I know on social medicine didn’t take care of themselves (only a maybe one couldnt take care of themselves).
The challenge with socialized medicine is that we should now push to ban alcohol, logically.
That has not worked in the past. Do you think it would work any better nowadays?
>> More recently, American conservative critics of health care reform have attempted to broaden the term by applying it to any publicly funded system.
Fascinating how different political groups literally do not speak the same language. I now assume you mean that all people should pay 100 % for their own health care needs since people only have themselves to blame if they need health care?
Though I think some of the political proponents have shifted their SEO terms to “universal healthcare” in recent years after they found the term confusing.
> I now assume you mean that all people should pay 100 % for their own health care needs since people only have themselves to blame if they need health care?
I’m not saying one way or the other what I think. I’m saying the logical conclusion of paying for everyone’s medical bills is that you create regulation to try to lower said bills. By definition, this restricts freedoms, which I’m opposed to.
I'm sympathetic to the idea that everyone should stop drinking. I'm not a fan of mind-altering drugs and it makes for boring conversation. But we need to get used to the idea that literally nothing is safe. Living kills us all eventually. The argument against alcohol needs to be that an alcohol-free life is of higher quality.
If we're going to discourage people from doing unsafe things, are we planning to disband the army? There is no safe amount of time to spend in a moving vehicle either, those things are dangerous. Working a day job is no good for people's health. Safe doesn't mean no harm; that is impossible. And the question is always whether the benefit outweighs the cost.
If this is true, the medical community is actively causing harm. Many compounded or suspended children's medicines contain alcohol. Many do not have alcohol free alternatives.
That’s kind of a bizarre way of phrasing it. Yes, the medical community actively causes lesser harms, with the goals of preventing greater harms. Radiation therapy and chemotherapy, for example, are extremely harmful! Yet we use them as cancer treatments because the cancer we are treating with them is probably more harmful than the treatment.
Radiation therapy and chemotherapy are extreme examples, but this analysis is done across medicine with lesser treatments as well—and yes, we change the way we treat people as our understanding of the risks and benefits of various treatments changes.
My main point is that's it's hypocritical to say one drop is dangerous and then have a myriad of children's meds containing it when alternative ingredients exist.
You're miles away from making that point in a way that I can understand.
Medicine containing alcohol often comes with a few more counter-indications because of it, plus it limits the sales to people who wish to maintain strict abstinence, like Muslims. If they keep the alcohol, it is probably for a good reason.
It is completely different from recommending alcohol itself.
Can you name medications that require alcohol vs an alternative? Most of the alternatives are innocent like glycerin, or similar to food preservatives.
My main point is that there is hypocrisy. Saying that one drop is dangerous yet having it be heavily prevalent children's meds... one of these isn't right.
Why? Because the body heals whatever miniscule damage occurs with small amounts. The trade off is one which we decide to leave to people to make with their judgment.
but it's not because of the alcohol, why wine is "good", it because we mostly relax with it, which reduces stress levels. everything else is bad, at least that it the perception of the last 2-4 years in germany.
They won't.
> The facts are facts. Alcohol is a poison that wrecks havoc on your mind and body
So are almonds
If you eat 20 apples including the seeds, you die instantly.
But so are also soda beverages
but US citizens drink an estimated 154 liters per capita every year
But, I like this phrase “the generational zeitgeist is ostentatious abnegation”, so much that I’m going to use it in the future and pretend I do believe it. Thank you
How do you draw the line?
I think this is what people don't get about the study. The study is not saying no one should drink. It's not saying that the risks of drinking outweigh the benefit. It's saying that for any amount of alcohol, ingesting it, on aggregate, decreases life expectancy. Nothing more. It's a measurement of the increase of risk, which can then be combined and contrasted with other measurements and help make informed decisions.
You draw the line however you want. You now have more information to make that decision.
Jumping off a building is not hazardous to your health, hitting the ground is.
A vehicular accident as a driver is not a direct cause of driving any more than a pedestrian accident by a vehicle is the direct cause of walking.
I object to the conflation of quantitative risk of experiencing an incidental event with the qualitative risk posed by a voluntary event.
Not that there isn't acceptable tradeoffs with what is attained by driving.
Which is ironic, because, while most people use the "Linear no-threshold" model for radiation, we know that small amounts of radiation are actually beneficial.
The most charitable reason I can think of for why people still use the LNT model is because it's simple and robust. But that doesn't mean that it's the most accurate understanding that we have.
How could ionizing radiation be beneficial? Unless the argument is exposure to ultraviolet in order to get Vitamin D, I can’t imagine ionizing radiation to be beneficial in any way.
Edit:
> The good includes abundant evidence showing increased 1) physiologic performance, 2) immune competence, 3) health, and 4) mean lifespan.
From the article in the comment below. Apparently in very low doses it stimulates the immune system and healthy cell reconstruction.
I'm not going to pretend that I understand the reasons. But there have been a lot of studies.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2477686/
(maybe it was not as crazy as I thought)
This is wild stuff:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180306-a-spa-where-pati...
Heart Disease is a bigger killer than cancer.
If you take a look at the studies you can determine how much of an increased risk you're comfortable with. For example, figure 5 in https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
When doing this analysis though be sure to note that scientists studying this use 10g drinks, which is 12.5mL of ethanol, one tallboy of 6.5% beer is therefore about 2.5 drinks.
https://www.webmd.com/diet/beer-good-for-you
What we see - empirically - is that light/moderate drinkers have better overall health outcomes than both heavy drinkers and people who consume zero alcohol.
The outcomes of the heavy drinkers seem self-evident so we don't need to bother with that ... it is the relative better health vs. non-drinkers that is interesting.
One conclusion that many people draw, and which you are alluding to, is that alcohol has properties that are beneficial in small doses.
However, a much simpler and more explanatory conclusion is that in developed, western (or, "global north") countries there is nobody that isn't drinking and the individuals that consume zero alcohol are doing so because it really affects them, or bothers them, etc. They are less robust, generally, and therefore have health outcomes that are worse than light/moderate drinkers.
I draw your attention to the fact that NFL players have lower all-cause mortality and live longer lives than the general public. Is that because violent collisions and football playing, generally, magically helps them ?
Of course not. They're just stronger than we are.
It’s not worthless at all.
Funny enough though driving is by far worse for your health than moderate or light drinking, and it’s even more insidious than drinking because not only do that negative effects take a long time to manifest, but they’re couched inside of a “necessity”.
I think it’s more funny you choose a rhetoric that suits your lifestyle and your needs, and dismiss that it might be helpful for people who don’t find alcohol culture appealing.
Couple issues with this. First why not a 20 minute trip by car with fees for parking and all that versus a 20 minute trip by train? Depending on where you live this can be your currently daily experience. It could also be anyones daily experience if we just decided we wanted to do that.
The second issue is that simple comparing the surface level time-by-transit misses most of the particulars that matter. And you are also mistakenly applying individual experience with aggregate experience i.e. 40 minutes saved for the individual but in aggregate many people actually do die because of the 100x serious injury probability.
I can emphatize, though, if the feeling corresponds to what I feel participating in this thread.
Edit, I can't read
Alcohol has numerically similar numbers of cancer cases, and cancer is just one aspect. Now it is less, and we can argue about how widespread the use is ect. However, it cases 1/3 of the cases, heart disease, mental health problems.
Are you a drinker? Especially since quitting, I've noticed a lot of drinkers get incredibly defensive against something that seems very rational and well supported by evidence.
Set aside alcohol for a minute; this article is saying that because the absolute risk of an activity is not zero, the activity is inheriently unsafe. That's not true, not an appropriate strategy for decision making, and most importantly not an effective way to influence behaviours. This is the definition of perfect as the enemy of better.
Well ya? Is that not self-evident?
See, there's this thing I enjoy very much, but I was forced to stop because of evidence of the negative consequences. Now, since I am a kind person, I can share the knowledge of those negative consequences so may be you could avoid them, too.
Said another way, if I were not negative to said activity that I enjoy, I would still be doing it. And if I were indifferent to the well-being of others, I wouldn't be vocal/share.
I wish the article would tell us more about this curve. How much does my risk increase for each drink I have?
YouTubers big and small with a massive child demographic were promoting alcohol or their own brands not long ago.
[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pN6ksB3-QJ8
[2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gfjgISRI5E4
[3] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qF0zM5MlmCw
I have never seen someone who did those things drunk who didn't also do those things sober.
That makes sense--alcohol decreases inhibition. It makes you do things that maybe you were inclined to do, but wouldn't do sober. (That is part of why people drink alcohol in the first place.)
NB: this does not mean actively using. Dependency creates significant stress when sober, which almost certainly amplifies violent dispositions. Hence my GP's comment.
How does that not support my point?
> That makes sense--alcohol decreases inhibition. It makes you do things that maybe you were inclined to do, but wouldn't do sober. (That is part of why people drink alcohol in the first place.)
> While undoubtedly there is some link between alcohol and drugs and domestic abuse, this research should be treated with some caution, said Dame Vera Baird, victims' commissioner for England and Wales. She said: "Many perpetrators who commit domestic violence while drunk will also be violent and controlling while sober. "And many perpetrators of domestic violence and coercive control do not have a drink or drug problem, and therefore it would be a mistake to divert resources from domestic violence perpetrator programmes to tackling drink and drugs misuse."
Why not call McCarthy back too?
Alcohol problems are not the same thing of alcohol consumption.
Also:
Scotland's alcohol consumption is among the highest in the world, according to World Health Organization data; on average, Scots consume the equivalent of more than 13 liters (3.4 gallons) of pure alcohol a year, about 40 percent more than Americans (2.4 gallons)
We in Italy consume less than 7 liters per year (less than 1.8 gallons).
Talking about moderate drinking.
Americans are much more compliant now, not to mention health and socially conscious. For example, the culture of alcohol use has disparate impacts on black and brown communities: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2771773/ ("African Americans and Hispanics bear a disproportionately greater burden of alcohol-related health problems compared to whites, as evidenced by higher rates of liver cirrhosis, death rates due to cirrhosis, and rates of overall alcohol-related mortality.") That is true even though, for example, black Americans begin drinking later and drink less than white Americans: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3758406/.
American health issue are mostly class based.
Black and brown people are poorer on average, hence they face more issues regarding health issues in general.
Alcohol abuse is a well known addiction among people of lower classes, while higher classes prefer other more expensive substances.
Also with more money available come higher quality alcoholic beverages.
which is a form of prohibitionism in itself, but didn't stop people from binge drinking.
Here in Italy, where wine is very cheap, you don't see people drinking like the Americans do, especially not adult people.
Kids, maybe, sometimes, we have a problem with young people binge drinking, mostly because they gathered those habits from American culture which massively influence their daily content consumption.
Back in the day the American culture my generation has been exposed to was very different about who drank on screen and why.
Nor am I criticizing unrelated beliefs. I don't disagree with SJWs that we live in a society dominated by the attitudes and culture of white European Americans--including their drinking culture. I typically disagree with them on whether that's a bad thing, or how we should frame that for kids, or how that should affect legal relations between people. But I don't disagree with the notion that aspects of American culture adapted from Europeans--in this case drinking culture, but I'd also throw parenting culture in there, and individualism--can have negative impacts on minority groups.
America simply drinks too much
We Italians are usually described as people who love to sit and drink all day.
On average Italians drink half the alcohol of Americans yearly.
Consider that in Italy non drinkers are ~25% while in America 36% of adults described themselves as “total abstainers”.
>> Americans are much more compliant now
Are you saying prohibition is worth another attempt? Because we're currently in our 52nd year of the official start of the War on Drugs [1], which is just Prohibition by another name. Unofficially, the War on Drugs goes back much further, and it's a war that the government has been losing badly since the start [2]. Even per-capita, we're the biggest consumers of illegal drugs in the world [3]. So I'd be curious to hear what evidence of compliance you could give, which would outweigh the evidence of non-compliance going back to at least the Nixon administration.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs
2. https://www.ahdbonline.com/articles/2053-are-we-winning-the-...
3. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/drug-use-...
The whole argument seems like a discussion-ending cover for people's emotional attachment to alcohol. It completely doesn't engage with the cost-benefit analysis of how alcohol affects the functioning of society at large or navigate any of those tradeoffs.
See: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/5/18518005/prohibit...
Half a litre of beer a day is considered "light"?
also they don't say how many of those cancers can actually be attributed directly to alcohol consumption. my guess would be few.
> 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
It's completely unreasonable to call that level of consumption "light".
You think that a pint of beer will leave you inebriated most of the day?
i'd really like to know where all of these people that can't seem to handle a glass of beer, quite probably with something to eat, without freaking out are coming from?
And again, this is the UPPER BOUND. not the average as you say
https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/how-long-should-...
Where would that be? German beer is usually 5-5.5%, same for Austria. In Norway it's 4.5-4.7%
It's very light - in many (most not zero-tolerance) country is legal to drive. One beer is around 0.04-0.05% for a grown up man, around 2h after consumption it should be below 0.02%.
We’ve developed means to more effectively handle certain common poisons. That doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous.
Poisons are neutralized but are not energy source (nutrient). Turns out, alcohol is.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
It'll be the same discussion, addicts trying to rationalize away the science and statistics.
Pretty shocking to see this much denialism going on in a forum that's often much more rational and objective.
Sugar and alcohol are addictive and addictions are irrational and you can't use rational objective thought to get out of a situation that is inherently irrational and subjective, like addiction.
Essentially zero H users, for example, have never heard the news that H is bad for them. Can't just concentrate hard enough to get out of an addiction, they don't work that way. So it is with alcohol, sugar, carb binging in general, etc.
If you don't eat an essential nutrient (vitamins, minerals, etc) you'll eventually get sick and die. If you don't eat a very high carb diet you'll ... be healthier and have better blood test results? Nobody never died from having a single digit A1c blood test result or a blood glucose no longer going up to 250 anymore LOL.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_zone
Do we have any evidence that low carb diets have a positive effect on longevity compared to these diets?
Compared to the Standard American Diet, low carb may be far better as it can eliminates refined carbs with no nutritional value, but the optimal diet may include a moderate amount of carbs from healthy whole food sources.
I’m actually following a low carb diet myself for almost 1 year and agree it has benefits, but think ultimately it’s place is as a stepping stone. I will probably begin to incorporate healthy whole foods as I am exercising more than I was when I started and it’s hard to get enough calories.
sometimes i drink a nice whiskey because i love the taste (specially when paired with a nice cigar), but sometimes i drink to get tipsy because... well, it's fun for me.
it's like the difference between normal cake and cake infused with thc: i will eat cake for dessert, but sometimes, ingesting infused cake is more fun.
It doesn't taste exactly the same though - but similar.