15 ms·

The article you linked (and in fact , no study exists) to support your claims about small amounts of alcohol. In fact plenty of evidence exists to the contrary.

dionidium 4y ago
There's reason to believe those earlier studies used flawed methodologies: > But there was a problem with many of these studies: They compared drinkers to non-drinkers, instead of comparing only lighter drinkers to heavier drinkers. And people who don’t drink are pretty fundamentally different from drinkers in ways that are hard to control for in a study. Their lives probably look dissimilar. > Most importantly, they may be sicker at baseline (perhaps they quit drinking because of alcoholism, or because of a health issue like cancer). And something in these differences — not their avoidance of alcohol — may have caused them to look like they were in poorer health than the moderate drinkers. (This became known as the “sick quitter” problem in the world of alcohol research.) > Lately, researchers have been trying to overcome that problem by comparing lighter drinkers with heavier drinkers. And the benefits of modest amounts of alcohol wash away. And that even moderate amounts of alcohol are harmful: > Their findings were stark: Drinking more than 100 grams of alcohol — about seven standard glasses of wine or beer — per week was associated with an increased in risk of death for all causes, they concluded. In the US, the government suggests men can drink double that amount — up to two drinks per day — but advise women who are not pregnant to drink up to one drink per day. > A person’s risk of death shot up as they drank more. The researchers used a mathematical model to estimate that people who consumed between seven and 14 drinks per week had a lower life expectancy at age 40 of about six months; people who drank between 14 and 24 drinks per week had one to two years shaved off their lives; and people who imbibed more than 24 drinks a week had a lower life expectancy of four to five years. My sort of baseline here is that nobody would think twice about this if they weren't motivated to justify continued consumption. It's fairly obvious that it's bad for you. Source: https://www.vox.com/2018/4/24/17242720/alcohol-health-risks-facts https://www.vox.com/2018/4/24/17242720/alcohol-health-risks-...
- TaupeRanger 4y ago
  But those weren't problems at all with many such studies. For example, this one showed light drinking reduces risk of leukemia by 10%: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24986108/#:~:text=Compared%20with%20nondrinkers%2C%20the%20relative,day)%20alcohol%20drinking%2C%20respectively https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24986108/#:~:text=Compared%2....
  - lupire 4y ago
    Come on > the relative risks (RRs) for all leukemia were > 0.94 0.85-1.03 "any" > 0.90 0.80-1.01 "light" > 0.91 0.81-1.02 "moderate to heavy" There is no signal there.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  > between seven and 14 drinks per week That's already heavy drinking in my book; drinking every day of the week, or binge drinking at least once every week? Somebody drinking that much already has a clear habit and is probably developing an alcohol tolerance, a major step towards alcoholism. To me, a light drinker is somebody who has a drink on special occasions but not otherwise. One drink a week or less, so they're going several days if not weeks between drinking. I suspect the long-term harm from that is next to immeasurable.
jnovek 4y ago
“The level of alcohol consumption that minimised harm across health outcomes was zero (95% UI 0·0–0·8) standard drinks per week.” Seems pretty clear. It’s likely that the risk of,(e.g.) one drink per month is also very low. What’s not here is the inflection point where alcohol consumption goes from a (subjective) minimal risk to an elevated risk.
- dionidium 4y ago
  I would just note here that the CDC is unequivocal on this point with respect to cigarettes, saying always that there is "no safe level of consumption." I think that sort of language is basically absurd, but the message it sends is crystal clear: this thing is bad for you, even in small amounts, and you're doing harm when you use it. I think the CDC could easily settle on the same language with respect to alcohol, if there weren't socio-cultural reasons not to. Another aspect of this is that we discourage even light cigarette use because of the fear that users might become addicted and escalate their usage. [0] It's interesting how rarely you hear that kind of an argument against drinking alcohol, and yet, unlike with smoking, increased usage can actually be ruinous. On the day you take your first sip of alcohol you're accepting a 1 in x risk that you'll end up a problem drinker (where x is anywhere from 3 or 4 to 20, depending on what definition of "problem drinker" you're willing to accept). [0] I remember many years ago when I was a very light smoker trying to find statistics online about moderate cigarette use and it was basically impossible, because every single statement about cigarettes was of the form, "you won't be able to only smoke a little, so don't even bother trying."
  - sarchertech 4y ago
    I know plenty of people who have 1 drink a day, I know absolutely no one who smokes 1 cigarette per day. I’m sure they exist, but not in my n of several hundred, so I’d bet that’s it’s pretty rare. Smoking is also much more obnoxious and directly harms anyone near. This is a first order effect, not a 2nd order effect like increased risk of car accidents.
    - dionidium 4y ago

dionidium 4y ago

There's reason to believe those earlier studies used flawed methodologies: > But there was a problem with many of these studies: They compared drinkers to non-drinkers, instead of comparing only lighter drinkers to heavier drinkers. And people who don’t drink are pretty fundamentally different from drinkers in ways that are hard to control for in a study. Their lives probably look dissimilar. > Most importantly, they may be sicker at baseline (perhaps they quit drinking because of alcoholism, or because of a health issue like cancer). And something in these differences — not their avoidance of alcohol — may have caused them to look like they were in poorer health than the moderate drinkers. (This became known as the “sick quitter” problem in the world of alcohol research.) > Lately, researchers have been trying to overcome that problem by comparing lighter drinkers with heavier drinkers. And the benefits of modest amounts of alcohol wash away. And that even moderate amounts of alcohol are harmful: > Their findings were stark: Drinking more than 100 grams of alcohol — about seven standard glasses of wine or beer — per week was associated with an increased in risk of death for all causes, they concluded. In the US, the government suggests men can drink double that amount — up to two drinks per day — but advise women who are not pregnant to drink up to one drink per day. > A person’s risk of death shot up as they drank more. The researchers used a mathematical model to estimate that people who consumed between seven and 14 drinks per week had a lower life expectancy at age 40 of about six months; people who drank between 14 and 24 drinks per week had one to two years shaved off their lives; and people who imbibed more than 24 drinks a week had a lower life expectancy of four to five years. My sort of baseline here is that nobody would think twice about this if they weren't motivated to justify continued consumption. It's fairly obvious that it's bad for you. Source: https://www.vox.com/2018/4/24/17242720/alcohol-health-risks-facts https://www.vox.com/2018/4/24/17242720/alcohol-health-risks-...

TaupeRanger 4y ago
But those weren't problems at all with many such studies. For example, this one showed light drinking reduces risk of leukemia by 10%: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24986108/#:~:text=Compared%20with%20nondrinkers%2C%20the%20relative,day)%20alcohol%20drinking%2C%20respectively https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24986108/#:~:text=Compared%2....
- lupire 4y ago
  Come on > the relative risks (RRs) for all leukemia were > 0.94 0.85-1.03 "any" > 0.90 0.80-1.01 "light" > 0.91 0.81-1.02 "moderate to heavy" There is no signal there.
MichaelCollins 4y ago
> between seven and 14 drinks per week That's already heavy drinking in my book; drinking every day of the week, or binge drinking at least once every week? Somebody drinking that much already has a clear habit and is probably developing an alcohol tolerance, a major step towards alcoholism. To me, a light drinker is somebody who has a drink on special occasions but not otherwise. One drink a week or less, so they're going several days if not weeks between drinking. I suspect the long-term harm from that is next to immeasurable.

jnovek 4y ago

“The level of alcohol consumption that minimised harm across health outcomes was zero (95% UI 0·0–0·8) standard drinks per week.” Seems pretty clear. It’s likely that the risk of,(e.g.) one drink per month is also very low. What’s not here is the inflection point where alcohol consumption goes from a (subjective) minimal risk to an elevated risk.

dionidium 4y ago
I would just note here that the CDC is unequivocal on this point with respect to cigarettes, saying always that there is "no safe level of consumption." I think that sort of language is basically absurd, but the message it sends is crystal clear: this thing is bad for you, even in small amounts, and you're doing harm when you use it. I think the CDC could easily settle on the same language with respect to alcohol, if there weren't socio-cultural reasons not to. Another aspect of this is that we discourage even light cigarette use because of the fear that users might become addicted and escalate their usage. [0] It's interesting how rarely you hear that kind of an argument against drinking alcohol, and yet, unlike with smoking, increased usage can actually be ruinous. On the day you take your first sip of alcohol you're accepting a 1 in x risk that you'll end up a problem drinker (where x is anywhere from 3 or 4 to 20, depending on what definition of "problem drinker" you're willing to accept). [0] I remember many years ago when I was a very light smoker trying to find statistics online about moderate cigarette use and it was basically impossible, because every single statement about cigarettes was of the form, "you won't be able to only smoke a little, so don't even bother trying."
- sarchertech 4y ago
  I know plenty of people who have 1 drink a day, I know absolutely no one who smokes 1 cigarette per day. I’m sure they exist, but not in my n of several hundred, so I’d bet that’s it’s pretty rare. Smoking is also much more obnoxious and directly harms anyone near. This is a first order effect, not a 2nd order effect like increased risk of car accidents.
  - dionidium 4y ago