6 ms·

Another article from The Lancet from around the same time reported a whopping... 6 months of life expectancy reduction when consuming 100-200g of alcohol a week

Another article from The Lancet from around the same time reported a whopping... 6 months of life expectancy reduction when consuming 100-200g of alcohol a week versus 0-100g of alcohol a week. [1, Figure 4] A drink is 14 grams of alcohol, so that means that your risk from consuming 150 grams, or over 10 drinks a week, is still relatively low in terms of all-cause mortality. Figure 1 also shows that consumption of 0-100g per week has virtually no consequence on all-cause mortality. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(18)30134-X.pdf https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736...

clpm4j 5y ago
Queue the Winston Churchill quote "I've taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me". I believe he died at age 91. Although it seems crazy that we could have ever believed alcohol is healthy in any way.
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  Anecdotal accounts could be one offs. We need data for a full picture and even than the data could be biased. It may very well be Churchill could have survived longer were it not for alcohol. This recent post seems to imply that they now have more accurate and more unbiased data leading them to this new conclusion. I think a lot of people at the WHF drink some amount of alcohol as do most people in the world. However, despite this, their conclusions and announcements must be based off data which is exactly the right thing to do and exactly what they are doing here.
  - kekebo 5y ago
    There's some data on scholar, for instance a suggested health difference between wine vs beers or spirits, based on ~28k participants monitored over 2-19 years[0]. From my understanding the narrative of moderate alcohol consumption (specifically wine, via resveritrol) being beneficial comes from epidemiological studies of people living in the Mediterranean, an area with relatively long median life spans[1] [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC31093/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC31093/ [1] https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ben/emiddt/2014/00000014/00000004/art00009 https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ben/emiddt/2014/00000...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- wholien 5y ago
  Other than this being an anecdote and doesn't mean everyone who drinks heavily will leave to their 90s, the quality of those 90 years matters too! Though he became Prime Minister for the last time at the young age of 76 in 1951, he was plagued by health problems. He suffered many minor strokes and at least one that left him partially paralyzed for some time. He only stayed on as PM as long as he did because his successor was sick as well (Anthony Eden). Don't know about you, but I would rather live a healthy 70 years than live 90 years but where the last 20 years are plagued with illness and thus lower quality. In that light, I try to minimize the bad habits that may result in poorer health and thus lower quality life in my later years. Not saying I'm a saint, but I don't need to drink every day or even every week. Currently I'm mostly dry. Saves a lot of money too!
asiachick 5y ago
so Japanese people would live even longer than everyone else than they already do if they didn't drink so much
- dmurray 5y ago
  Japanese people don't drink a lot. They're 17th out of the 17 "high income countries" shown by default here: https://ourworldindata.org/alcohol-consumption https://ourworldindata.org/alcohol-consumption
  - kunai 5y ago
    They do smoke like chimneys though, which makes for some pretty surprising stats vis-a-vis lung cancer (lower rates than the US) and life expectancy (significantly higher).
Zababa 5y ago
For comparaison, smoking is ~10 years of life expectancy reduction https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/tobacco_related_mortality/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal.... Surprisingly obesity seems to only replace some of your last years with years with diabetes, without decreasing your longevity https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC4951120/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC4951120/. I think I didn't read that study correctly, or didn't find a good one. Air pollution might be around 1 to 3 years: https://dynomight.net/air/ https://dynomight.net/air/ A reduction of 6 months is also more than what you can expect to gain by taking statins: https://dynomight.net/statins/ https://dynomight.net/statins/.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  > obesity seems to only replace some of your last years with years with diabetes, without decreasing your longevity That's probably only because we can generally manage diabetes pretty well, though it does impose a lot of cost on society to do so.
  - AlbertCory 5y ago
    > we can generally manage diabetes pretty well We can but it requires the patient to manage their blood sugar very, very carefully and a lot of them can't do it 100% of the time. Whenever they don't, the damage happens and it accrues. I see a guy in the 'hood who's had much of his foot amputated as a result of diabetes. Or so I've heard. I'm not diabetic myself.
- nouveaux 5y ago
  "Nevertheless, men with obesity aged 55 y and older lived 2.8 (95% CI −6.1 to −0.1) fewer y without diabetes than normal weight individuals, whereas, for women, the difference between obese and normal weight counterparts was 4.7 (95% CI −9.0 to −0.6) y. Men and women with obesity lived 2.8 (95% CI 0.6 to 6.2) and 5.3 (95% CI 1.6 to 9.3) y longer with diabetes, respectively, compared to their normal weight counterparts." Is this study suggesting that obese people with diabetes lived longer than obese people without diabetes? I suppose that diabetes as a condition is not harmful in and of itself and perhaps leads to a healthier lifestyle?
floatingatoll 5y ago
It is absolutely acceptable to knowingly exchange damage to body for healing to mind, and vice versa as well. But I still appreciate that science is gradually making clear that alcohol is not perfectly harmless, and that a large-scale health foundation is finally admitting that.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  The mind is part of the body Also contrary to popular belief, alcohol does not heal or help the mind unless perhaps you have methanol poisoning or are in the middle of a panic attack
  - robobro 5y ago
    > The mind is part of the body is it...?
    - netizen-936824 5y ago
      Yes, the mind is an emergent property of the networks of the brain.
      - tapas73 5y ago
        Or maybe you have a soul.
        wombatmobile 5y ago
        The soul is an emergent property of the mind and body interacting with the world.
        netizen-936824 5y ago
        Citation needed. Please don't invoke magic
    - brnt 5y ago
      How could it possibly not be?
importantbrian 5y ago
This is an interesting study, and I'm not 100% sure it supports their conclusion. For example on Figure 1 the hazard ratio for all cause morality isn't much higher than 1 until you get into the 200g+ groups, and the hazard ratio for cardiovascular disease is less than 1 until you get over 200g. This would seem to support studies that find a benefit for moderate drinking on heart health. Most of this benefit seems to come from lowering the incidence of MI based on Figure 2. This also seems to support my initial hypothesis from reading your comment which is I wonder how much of the difference in all cause mortality is due to the effects of binge drinking or drunk driving. The fact that the hazard ratio on all cause mortality isn't really above one until you get over 200g would seem to support the idea that that is where most of the increased mortality comes from.
frereubu 5y ago
When I read stats like that I also think about quality of life. These results don't rule out people living pretty much the same length of time, but with an assortment of ailments caused by the alcohol that make life pretty miserable, as another comment in this thread says about obesity and diabetes.
loceng 5y ago
I wish we'd stop using shallow metrics life longevity over quality - it causes the layperson (who hasn't developed their critical thinking enough yet, or perhaps not capable to) to skim over that "lifespan" doesn't take into account all kinds of qualitative variables - including alcohol being a depressant, literally you're depressing how sharp your nervous system can be; yes, which people often self-medicate with because they have energies they haven't yet figured out how to regulate and are too intense, so the alcohol becomes an escape. I'm not against alcohol, I'm just for informed consent - understanding the full scope of what you're doing.
- volkl48 5y ago
  Maybe you have a different point in mind, but I am skeptical that there are any consumers of alcohol that are not aware that it is partially a depressant. This is both obvious to any consumer of it, and taught in every school that does any sort of substance (ab)use education.
  - loceng 5y ago
    Do you know if they teach that it causes cancer too?
nimish 5y ago
You've uncovered the fundamental issue with numerous public health studies: the effect size is irrelevant. You don't get attention for being modest.

clpm4j 5y ago

Queue the Winston Churchill quote "I've taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me". I believe he died at age 91. Although it seems crazy that we could have ever believed alcohol is healthy in any way.

deltaonefour 5y ago
Anecdotal accounts could be one offs. We need data for a full picture and even than the data could be biased. It may very well be Churchill could have survived longer were it not for alcohol. This recent post seems to imply that they now have more accurate and more unbiased data leading them to this new conclusion. I think a lot of people at the WHF drink some amount of alcohol as do most people in the world. However, despite this, their conclusions and announcements must be based off data which is exactly the right thing to do and exactly what they are doing here.
- kekebo 5y ago
  There's some data on scholar, for instance a suggested health difference between wine vs beers or spirits, based on ~28k participants monitored over 2-19 years[0]. From my understanding the narrative of moderate alcohol consumption (specifically wine, via resveritrol) being beneficial comes from epidemiological studies of people living in the Mediterranean, an area with relatively long median life spans[1] [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC31093/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC31093/ [1] https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ben/emiddt/2014/00000014/00000004/art00009 https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ben/emiddt/2014/00000...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
wholien 5y ago
Other than this being an anecdote and doesn't mean everyone who drinks heavily will leave to their 90s, the quality of those 90 years matters too! Though he became Prime Minister for the last time at the young age of 76 in 1951, he was plagued by health problems. He suffered many minor strokes and at least one that left him partially paralyzed for some time. He only stayed on as PM as long as he did because his successor was sick as well (Anthony Eden). Don't know about you, but I would rather live a healthy 70 years than live 90 years but where the last 20 years are plagued with illness and thus lower quality. In that light, I try to minimize the bad habits that may result in poorer health and thus lower quality life in my later years. Not saying I'm a saint, but I don't need to drink every day or even every week. Currently I'm mostly dry. Saves a lot of money too!

asiachick 5y ago

so Japanese people would live even longer than everyone else than they already do if they didn't drink so much

dmurray 5y ago
Japanese people don't drink a lot. They're 17th out of the 17 "high income countries" shown by default here: https://ourworldindata.org/alcohol-consumption https://ourworldindata.org/alcohol-consumption
- kunai 5y ago
  They do smoke like chimneys though, which makes for some pretty surprising stats vis-a-vis lung cancer (lower rates than the US) and life expectancy (significantly higher).

Zababa 5y ago

For comparaison, smoking is ~10 years of life expectancy reduction https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/tobacco_related_mortality/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal.... Surprisingly obesity seems to only replace some of your last years with years with diabetes, without decreasing your longevity https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC4951120/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC4951120/. I think I didn't read that study correctly, or didn't find a good one. Air pollution might be around 1 to 3 years: https://dynomight.net/air/ https://dynomight.net/air/ A reduction of 6 months is also more than what you can expect to gain by taking statins: https://dynomight.net/statins/ https://dynomight.net/statins/.

throwawayboise 5y ago
> obesity seems to only replace some of your last years with years with diabetes, without decreasing your longevity That's probably only because we can generally manage diabetes pretty well, though it does impose a lot of cost on society to do so.
- AlbertCory 5y ago
  > we can generally manage diabetes pretty well We can but it requires the patient to manage their blood sugar very, very carefully and a lot of them can't do it 100% of the time. Whenever they don't, the damage happens and it accrues. I see a guy in the 'hood who's had much of his foot amputated as a result of diabetes. Or so I've heard. I'm not diabetic myself.
nouveaux 5y ago
"Nevertheless, men with obesity aged 55 y and older lived 2.8 (95% CI −6.1 to −0.1) fewer y without diabetes than normal weight individuals, whereas, for women, the difference between obese and normal weight counterparts was 4.7 (95% CI −9.0 to −0.6) y. Men and women with obesity lived 2.8 (95% CI 0.6 to 6.2) and 5.3 (95% CI 1.6 to 9.3) y longer with diabetes, respectively, compared to their normal weight counterparts." Is this study suggesting that obese people with diabetes lived longer than obese people without diabetes? I suppose that diabetes as a condition is not harmful in and of itself and perhaps leads to a healthier lifestyle?

floatingatoll 5y ago

It is absolutely acceptable to knowingly exchange damage to body for healing to mind, and vice versa as well. But I still appreciate that science is gradually making clear that alcohol is not perfectly harmless, and that a large-scale health foundation is finally admitting that.

netizen-936824 5y ago
The mind is part of the body Also contrary to popular belief, alcohol does not heal or help the mind unless perhaps you have methanol poisoning or are in the middle of a panic attack
- robobro 5y ago
  > The mind is part of the body is it...?
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    Yes, the mind is an emergent property of the networks of the brain.
    - tapas73 5y ago
      Or maybe you have a soul.
      - wombatmobile 5y ago
        The soul is an emergent property of the mind and body interacting with the world.
      - netizen-936824 5y ago
        Citation needed. Please don't invoke magic
  - brnt 5y ago
    How could it possibly not be?

importantbrian 5y ago

This is an interesting study, and I'm not 100% sure it supports their conclusion. For example on Figure 1 the hazard ratio for all cause morality isn't much higher than 1 until you get into the 200g+ groups, and the hazard ratio for cardiovascular disease is less than 1 until you get over 200g. This would seem to support studies that find a benefit for moderate drinking on heart health. Most of this benefit seems to come from lowering the incidence of MI based on Figure 2. This also seems to support my initial hypothesis from reading your comment which is I wonder how much of the difference in all cause mortality is due to the effects of binge drinking or drunk driving. The fact that the hazard ratio on all cause mortality isn't really above one until you get over 200g would seem to support the idea that that is where most of the increased mortality comes from.

frereubu 5y ago

When I read stats like that I also think about quality of life. These results don't rule out people living pretty much the same length of time, but with an assortment of ailments caused by the alcohol that make life pretty miserable, as another comment in this thread says about obesity and diabetes.

loceng 5y ago

I wish we'd stop using shallow metrics life longevity over quality - it causes the layperson (who hasn't developed their critical thinking enough yet, or perhaps not capable to) to skim over that "lifespan" doesn't take into account all kinds of qualitative variables - including alcohol being a depressant, literally you're depressing how sharp your nervous system can be; yes, which people often self-medicate with because they have energies they haven't yet figured out how to regulate and are too intense, so the alcohol becomes an escape. I'm not against alcohol, I'm just for informed consent - understanding the full scope of what you're doing.

volkl48 5y ago
Maybe you have a different point in mind, but I am skeptical that there are any consumers of alcohol that are not aware that it is partially a depressant. This is both obvious to any consumer of it, and taught in every school that does any sort of substance (ab)use education.
- loceng 5y ago
  Do you know if they teach that it causes cancer too?

nimish 5y ago

You've uncovered the fundamental issue with numerous public health studies: the effect size is irrelevant. You don't get attention for being modest.