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That's quite the dangerous trade-off. Doubt that it's worth it: "Countless scientific studies have espoused the idea that a glass of red wine a day can be good

That's quite the dangerous trade-off. Doubt that it's worth it: "Countless scientific studies have espoused the idea that a glass of red wine a day can be good for the heart, but a new, sweeping global study published in The Lancet on Friday rejects the notion that any drinking can be healthy. No amount of alcohol is safe, according to The Global Burden of Diseases study, which analyzed levels of alcohol use and its health effects in 195 countries from 1990 to 2016." [Source: https://www.npr.org/2018/08/24/641618937/no-amount-of-alcohol-is-good-for-your-health-global-study-claims https://www.npr.org/2018/08/24/641618937/no-amount-of-alcoho...]

tbrownaw 6y ago
Isn't that "not known to be safe" rather than "known to not be safe"?
JacKTrocinskI 6y ago
I think the health issues caused by alcohol are generally underrepresented because it’s difficult to directly correlate the use of alcohol with something like hypertension, GERD, heart disease, diabetes, etc. Another problem is that often serious signs of alcoholism, like blacking out or vomiting, are considered a normal part of party life and are often portrayed in the media as funny but not necessarily as harmful. Alcohol is not good for your health, no matter the quantity, and the risk of alcoholism makes it in my opinion completely not worth it, especially since I value my health and would like to stay sharp as long as humanly possible.
henearkr 6y ago
Probably the "healthy" part of red wine is resveratrol, but in this case you can just have resveratrol in red grape (whole or its juice) or even in supplements.
- orev 6y ago
  Grapes (and especially grape juice!) are probably not much better. They wouldn’t have the carcinogenic alcohol, but they have enormous amounts of sugar, which causes its own large set of health problems.
  - henearkr 6y ago
    If you avoid other sugars in your diet, in particular added sugars like the ones you can find in pastries, syrups, etc., I'd say that by consuming a moderate amount of fruits every day you're safe. Grape or grape juice contain also fibers, that regulate many effects of sugars. But if you really want to play safe, at the cost of more energy-intensive processing to produce it, you can go for resveratrol supplements in capsules.
  - biolurker1 6y ago
    Fructose from fruits is not considered bad unless you have a source
    - henearkr 6y ago
      I think that the precise reason is that when it comes from fruits fructose is always accompanied by fibers, even in juices. Purified fructose is probably not very good.
shadowprofile77 6y ago
Yes, no amount of living life (or consuming and doing many things that make parts of it truly enjoyable) is safe for the raw metric of living as long as possible either, but that's why a certain type of trade-off exists between small to moderate but pleasurable risks and living in a way that's worth the name. This kind of puritanism about all possible risks easily slides into the cheerlessly obsessive.

tbrownaw 6y ago

Isn't that "not known to be safe" rather than "known to not be safe"?

JacKTrocinskI 6y ago

I think the health issues caused by alcohol are generally underrepresented because it’s difficult to directly correlate the use of alcohol with something like hypertension, GERD, heart disease, diabetes, etc. Another problem is that often serious signs of alcoholism, like blacking out or vomiting, are considered a normal part of party life and are often portrayed in the media as funny but not necessarily as harmful. Alcohol is not good for your health, no matter the quantity, and the risk of alcoholism makes it in my opinion completely not worth it, especially since I value my health and would like to stay sharp as long as humanly possible.

henearkr 6y ago

Probably the "healthy" part of red wine is resveratrol, but in this case you can just have resveratrol in red grape (whole or its juice) or even in supplements.

orev 6y ago
Grapes (and especially grape juice!) are probably not much better. They wouldn’t have the carcinogenic alcohol, but they have enormous amounts of sugar, which causes its own large set of health problems.
- henearkr 6y ago
  If you avoid other sugars in your diet, in particular added sugars like the ones you can find in pastries, syrups, etc., I'd say that by consuming a moderate amount of fruits every day you're safe. Grape or grape juice contain also fibers, that regulate many effects of sugars. But if you really want to play safe, at the cost of more energy-intensive processing to produce it, you can go for resveratrol supplements in capsules.
- biolurker1 6y ago
  Fructose from fruits is not considered bad unless you have a source
  - henearkr 6y ago
    I think that the precise reason is that when it comes from fruits fructose is always accompanied by fibers, even in juices. Purified fructose is probably not very good.

shadowprofile77 6y ago

Yes, no amount of living life (or consuming and doing many things that make parts of it truly enjoyable) is safe for the raw metric of living as long as possible either, but that's why a certain type of trade-off exists between small to moderate but pleasurable risks and living in a way that's worth the name. This kind of puritanism about all possible risks easily slides into the cheerlessly obsessive.