16 ms·

No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health

209 points by indus 4y ago

CommanderData 4y ago
Beverages which taste exactly the same but has no harmful alcohol or toxic side effects, would people still want the toxic version?
- zabzonk 4y ago
  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)
- fernandotakai 4y ago
  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.
- theNJR 4y ago
  There are plenty of such 0% and drinks and they aren’t nearly as popular. People are after the effects, the taste is secondary.
- astura 4y ago
  Non-alcoholic beer exists, is sold at bars, and is niche-popular. Obviously, most people go for the alcohol version. It doesn't taste exactly the same though - but similar.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
amelius 4y ago
Not even a homeopathic quantity?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
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coldtea 4y ago
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.
- 6d6b73 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - coldtea 4y ago
    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).
  - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
    If you need to judge people for what they enjoy to have a joyful life I’m sorry for you.
  - B8MGHCBekDuRi 4y ago
    if you think that enjoying stuff is bad, I'm sorry for you. I also don't need carbonara, pizza, gelato, the beach, snowboarding, my friends, my family to survive...
  - berndi 4y ago
    The vast majority of people enjoy drinking and do so responsibly. 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.
kome 4y ago
[flagged]
chasd00 4y ago
Time consumption is 100% fatal
- layer8 4y ago
  The rate is a constant one second per second though, whereas with alcohol it's variable.
fredley 4y ago
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.
- FollowingTheDao 4y ago
  But that book does not suggest alcohol at any level is bad either. So if they are saying is news. And stupid ill-informed news.
- phonescreen_man 4y ago
  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?
  - jowsie 4y ago
    He compared taking ecstasy to riding a horse in terms of danger. It's one of many things that led to him being sacked.
  - CretinDesAlpes 4y ago
    Yes, he is known for this graph (The Lancet, 2010): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt#/media/File:HarmCausedByDrugsTable.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt#/media/File:HarmCau...
    - skeeter2020 4y ago
      Yikes! Alcohol looks like almost 75... harm units? I assume 100 is punching a kitten? I assume he was sacked for producing such a poor data visualization, or just the political "data" behind it?
      - 4y ago
zabzonk 4y ago
already had this, a couple of hours ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34751649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34751649
tester756 4y ago
Cool, maybe it'll help debunking those "small amounts of alcohol are healthly (from body standpoint)"
- B8MGHCBekDuRi 4y ago
  no need to debunk the truth. 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.
  - diydsp 4y ago
    "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." https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/22/471416356/that-cabernet-might-not-be-good-for-your-health-after-all https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/22/4714163...
pard68 4y ago
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]."
- B8MGHCBekDuRi 4y ago
  You nailed it. 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-health-care.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/26/opinion/food-nutrition-he... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/opinion/sway-kara-swisher-michael-pollan.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/opinion/sway-kara-swisher...
  - tmountain 4y ago
    “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.
  - joseph_grobbles 4y ago
    [dead]
FollowingTheDao 4y ago
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.
- blantonl 4y ago
  Your grandfather was an alcoholic who lived to age 99
- thehappypm 4y ago
  Sneaking shots is alcoholic behavior.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    Or it's "keep the peace" behavior. A real alcoholic would have it in a water bottle. (inb4 no true scotsman)
  - throwaway98797 4y ago
    what’s preferred a happy alcoholic or a sober know it all
  - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
    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.
    - boomboomsubban 4y ago
joemazerino 4y ago
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. 1 - https://www.boston.com/news/health/2020/07/15/men-should-limit-alcohol-to-1-drink-a-day-not-2-say-new-guidelines/ https://www.boston.com/news/health/2020/07/15/men-should-lim...
- bamboozled 4y ago
  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.
  - SeanLuke 4y ago
    > Anecdotally I know a lot of really old people who still drink. I know someone who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day who is almost 100 years old. Smoking is good or you!
    - bamboozled 4y ago
      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.
  - 4y ago
bradleyjg 4y ago
The generational zeitgeist is ostentatious abnegation. This fits.
- HEmanZ 4y ago
  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
  - bradleyjg 4y ago
    The 80s was famously about conspicuous consumption. Not everyone then, and there plenty of it now, but the zeitgeist isn’t a statistical metric.
- __derek__ 4y ago
  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."
paiute 4y ago
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.
- lr4444lr 4y ago
  Driving isn't hazardous to your health. Crashing is. That's like saying eating is unhealthy to your health because you might choke.
  - kitten_mittens_ 4y ago
    Driving is hazardous to other people's health in the form of crashes AND pollution in the form of noise, dust, and exhaust.
    - paiute 4y ago
      ah snap! I was wrong. Driving is not safe at idle as well! So I should rephrase: A running car is never safe.
    - lstodd 4y ago
      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. How do you draw the line?
      - Fargren 4y ago
        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.
bigyikes 4y ago
> 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?
CommanderData 4y ago
There's a huge industry and lobby at odds. I drink less and less but I can't ignore its always in my face. 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 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pN6ksB3-QJ8 [2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gfjgISRI5E4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gfjgISRI5E4 [3] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qF0zM5MlmCw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qF0zM5MlmCw
rayiner 4y ago
And that doesn't include the externalized costs, such as increased domestic violence: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-50887893 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-50887893, impacts on children: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/18/even-moderate-drinking-by-parents-can-upset-children-study https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/18/even-moderat..., etc. Now that Americans are more docile it might be a good time to take another shot at alcohol prohibition: https://time.com/5501680/prohibition-history-feminism-suffrage-metoo https://time.com/5501680/prohibition-history-feminism-suffra....
- auveair 4y ago
  > And that doesn't include the externalized costs, such as increased domestic violence, impacts on children I have never seen someone who did those things drunk who didn't also do those things sober.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    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.)
    - thebigspacefuck 4y ago
      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.
    - __derek__ 4y ago
      > 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.
sh4rks 4y ago
> 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 Half a litre of beer a day is considered "light"?
- zabzonk 4y ago
  it is where i come from - uk. also they don't say how many of those cancers can actually be attributed directly to alcohol consumption. my guess would be few.
  - arlort 4y ago
    https://www.thelancet.com/article/S1470-2045(21)00279-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/article/S1470-2045(21)00279-5/full... > 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
    - zabzonk 4y ago
      that is "estimated"
      - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
        I don’t now how else you would do it. There isn’t any way to tell what caused any individual cancer, as far as I know.
- subpixel 4y ago
  That’s one bottle of beer. I’d call that light.
- rco8786 4y ago
  That’s basically 1 pint a day, or 16 oz as the ceiling for “light”. That seems reasonable? Not the amount necessarily just the classification.
thriftwy 4y ago
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?
- Armisael16 4y ago
  The human body also has ways to heal broken bones - are you arguing that it’s a waste to not use those as well? We’ve developed means to more effectively handle certain common poisons. That doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous.
  - thriftwy 4y ago
    Bones need load to grow properly, and they will use the same mechanisms to grow strong. Poisons are neutralized but are not energy source (nutrient). Turns out, alcohol is.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Body also can naturally remove the commonly occurring heavy metals. But that doesn't mean we should consume them just because such mechanisms exist.
VLM 4y ago
Cool now do this with refined sugars or high carb diets in general. It'll be the same discussion, addicts trying to rationalize away the science and statistics.
- barbazoo 4y ago
  > 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.
  - VLM 4y ago
    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.
    - barbazoo 4y ago
      Sorry, what is H?
      - VLM 4y ago
        Heroin, my advice would be to not use it
- P_I_Staker 4y ago
  Carbs are great for you if you get the right carbs.
  - VLM 4y ago
    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.
downvotetruth 4y ago
[flagged]
bikamonki 4y ago
We've been drinking fermented drinks for millenia and yet here we are: 8 billion strong. Shut up WHO ;)
- hobo_mark 4y ago
  Nobody claimed alcohol stops procreation, hell if anything it does the opposite.
  - zabzonk 4y ago
    "depends how much alcohol", he said, somewhat floppily.
- gus_massa 4y ago
  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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_tolerance to see if you are more lucky.
z3t4 4y ago
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!?
- layer8 4y ago
  The question is, how much alcohol did they consume before becoming a millionaire, compared to the rest of the population. It might actually be less.
- bjourne 4y ago
  Do you think researchers are idiots?
  - drukenemo 4y ago
    Being a researcher is not an immediate admission to being honest, integral and intelligent.
  - friend_and_foe 4y ago
    A significant proportion of them are, unless you assume that proportion is just blatantly dishonest. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
    - bjourne 4y ago
      Most idiotic Hacker News take yet.
      - friend_and_foe 4y ago
        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?
        4y ago
hungryforcodes 4y ago
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?
lvl102 4y ago
If life wasn’t so miserable alcohol wouldn’t be so popular.
- phonescreen_man 4y ago
  Haha yeah nailed it. Plenty of good reasons to drink.
tinus_hn 4y ago
And people wonder why young people get lost in hard drugs when all science has to bring to the table is this kind of puritanical view.
- quantified 4y ago
  No frequency of driving to the store is safe, or jumping in the pool. Don't drink much. Beyond that, so what?
- thebigspacefuck 4y ago
  Alcohol is a hard drug.
rubyist5eva 4y ago
As I’m getting older I’ve basically had to swear off alchohol and marijuana completely. Even if I don’t get intoxicated (or stoned), I nearly always just feel like absolute garbage the next day (not hangover, just feel gross and groggy). Sometimes it’s lasted for days, even when I only have one drink or smoke barely enough weed to get a little buzzed. Fortunately I’ve also reached a point where I just don’t really feel good from being intoxicated either so I don’t really have a recreational incentive to do it anymore either. I don’t know how these things affect other people’s “sober lives” but if it’s anything like that I don’t see how people can function when getting intoxicated semi-regularly. The cost-benefit just seems completely lobsided.
- misiti3780 4y ago
  it's pretty simple, drink a lots of water while consuming and avoid high S02 + ABV based beverages.
jwmoz 4y ago
As someone currently suffering from a migraine after only drinking 2 cans of beer last night, I can attest to this.
- aliqot 4y ago
  you need to take better care of your body
kimjune01 4y ago
bread has alcohol in it. is it unsafe to eat bread?
- barbazoo 4y ago
  Residual if any at all. For now it remains safe to eat bread, yes.
tpmx 4y ago
Now do cannabis, WHO.
- deepsquirrelnet 4y ago
  https://www.who.int/teams/mental-health-and-substance-use/alcohol-drugs-and-addictive-behaviours/drugs-psychoactive/cannabis https://www.who.int/teams/mental-health-and-substance-use/al... https://www.who.int/teams/health-product-and-policy-standards/controlled-substances/who-review-of-cannabis-and-cannabis-related-substances https://www.who.int/teams/health-product-and-policy-standard... https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/cannabidiol-(compound-of-cannabis) https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/can... https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/ecdd-41-cannabis-recommendations https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/ecdd-41-cannabis-rec... https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/251056/9789241510240-eng.pdf https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/251056/9789...
barbazoo 4y ago
So much denialism going on here, it's like talking to my alcoholic relative. This shouldn't trigger such a strong reaction, if it does, one should look into why that is.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- danrl 4y ago
  I scrolled almost through the entire conversation. This is the first sane comment. Thank you.
- RhysabOweyn 4y ago
  Maybe read the well documented history of self-righteous teetotalers? It's not too hard to understand what the goal of this type of rhetoric is.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Lienetic 4y ago
    I'm genuinely curious - do you have some good references of this history I could read?
    - RhysabOweyn 4y ago
      Here’s a publicly available overview of the temperance movement and just how insane it was: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK216414/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK216414/
- zabzonk 4y ago
  being told what you should be doing by the self-righteous will tend to produce this effect
  - barbazoo 4y ago
simple-thoughts 4y ago
Fruit juice also contains small amounts of ethanol, so if the WHO is correct then do not replace your wine with fruit juice. Or as is more likely, this is completely overblown just as the anti tobacco campaign has been overblown. Yes alcohol and tobacco aren’t good for you, no they are not imbued with magic properties where even 1 drop means cancer. This type of thinking is common in pre scientific communities, where an object or substance is imbued with “bad energy” and having even the smallest contact with it contaminated the individual.
- misiti3780 4y ago
  I mean, the WHO has such an amazing track record at this point, did everyone forget about their COVID failures: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-57085505 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-57085505
misiti3780 4y ago
i drink a bottle of wine every night with dinner. i dont think it's healthy, i do it because it tastes delicious and enhances the experience.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
VincentEvans 4y ago
I am sure this is absolutely the last scientific paper that comes out completely reversing the conclusion of the papers that came out before. This time they did it!
rr808 4y ago
Is alcohol essential for a good social life? Growing up in Europe it definitely was a big part of it. Now I look at my younger colleagues in the US and many never drink, rarely go out and are lonely and single. But maybe healthier?
- zabzonk 4y ago
  being lonely is not so healthy. neither is sitting glued to your phone or console. might be better nursing a beer in a bar, watching football.
hackandthink 4y ago
David Spiegelhalter of BUGS fame: "So a total of 50,000 bottles of gin among these 1,600 people is associated with one extra health problem. Which still indicates a very low level of harm in drinkers drinking just more than the UK guidelines." https://medium.com/wintoncentre/the-risks-of-alcohol-again-2ae8cb006a4a https://medium.com/wintoncentre/the-risks-of-alcohol-again-2... The WHO is fear mongering. Maybe it is good health politics, people are scared of alcohol and people will have a better live. Maybe it would be better to communicate the risks more quantitavily. Not everyone is stupid.
- ac29 4y ago
  The way these risks are reported often makes this mistake. A statistically significant difference is reported as a "significant" difference, which means something different to lay people. For example, if a change in diet increases the chances of getting a specific cancer from 1 in 1000 to 1.5 in 1000, that very well may be statistically significant. But, your odds of not getting that cancer go from 99.9% to 99.85%, which most people would not consider to be a meaningful difference.
hprotagonist 4y ago
All things in moderation, including moderation. neopuritans be damned.
- deepsquirrelnet 4y ago
  Except meth. Not even once. But seriously, I’m fully on board with this sentiment. I’m so tired of everything quickly going to extremes. I’m glad to know alcohol has risks at any level. I’ll take that information and use it how I see fit. Same with cannabis, same with sugar, same with adult content, same with lead-containing enamel on my plates. Give me the information I need and let me be responsible for myself. Awareness of risks is what we should be doing. Forcing people into padded rooms so they don’t hurt themselves is not.
  - hprotagonist 4y ago
    > Except meth. Not even once. Unless you happen to be a hungarian mathematician, in which case: have at!
ohyes 4y ago
It’s good we’re clear on this, let’s not attempt prohibition again please.
JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago
1) The word 'health' should not be used because that's just a buzzword. The right word in this context could tentatively be 'lifespan', meaning that they are tentatively projecting that in the big sample of humans they surveyed those who drink 0mL of alcohol will stick around for longer compared to those who drink even 1mL. Meaning that in their model there is a correlation between the 2 data of sticking around for longer and alcohol intake. 2) Not even lifespan could be the right word because there are all sorts of stuff that alcohol facilitates which prolong lifespan by decreasing stress and anxiety, which in turn lower cortisol which is just as bad for lifespan when considered vis-a-vis alcohol. As always the so called authorities spend too much time in the lab and are essentially monodimensional individuals who (no pun intended) fail to see the bigger picture.
makeitdouble 4y ago
> To identify a “safe” level of alcohol consumption, valid scientific evidence would need to demonstrate that at and below a certain level, there is no risk of illness or injury associated with alcohol consumption. The premise of this “no level of consumption is safe” is this requirement to prove 0 risk. If for instance drinking one glass everyday increases your cancer chances by 0.0000000001%, bringing it to 0. 0000300001%, it would still be considered unsafe, as your chances of cancer increased. I see the logic, but that isn’t layman‘s categorization of safe or unsafe. And what are the actual base risk of cancer for a healthy individual ? Taking a base of 60 million death per year, who’s numbers on cancer are of 10 million [0], where death by liver cancer are 830 000, roughly 1%. Given that those don’t all come from alcohol, and to reach that stage requires way more than standard consumption, the base risk feels already pretty low. All in all, while this article is factual, it turns this facts in such a biased way it feels dogmatic at times. If we’re going to have serious discussions around alcohol, we shouldn’t start them like this. [0] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cancer https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cancer
- P_I_Staker 4y ago
  Should we be establishing safe amounts of cigarette smoking? Safe amounts of gasoline to drink? Alcohol users really don't like people pointing out that their habit isn't safe.
  - skeeter2020 4y ago
    and yet we do this all the time. Your city probably produces an air quality alert that has some form of ranges; I doubt it says "one particulate of pollution found in the air; stop breathing!".
  - caskstrength 4y ago
    > Alcohol users really don't like people pointing out that their habit isn't safe. In my experience that is because people who point that out usually eat all kinds of crap full of sugar and transfats, drink bubbly-sugary drinks (is Coke even better than a good beer?), live in noisy polluted cities and often work themselves to death for status or 3rd car for their family or whatever. But somehow my couple of bottles of beer on weekend is a health emergency and we need to tax it 1000% and only allow to sell if from 9 to 10 am on Mondays or something...
P_I_Staker 4y ago
Yup. All those sick quitters severely fucked up the studies.
treespace8 4y ago
I fear for a world where alcohol is banned. I feel modern society is built on it. A human is the only animal that is aware they will die. Also unique to humans is that we think about what others think. This makes us very anxious. Alcohol is a known way to relax. It helps calm our minds down. No it's not good for our bodies. But it's very healthy to relax.
- P_I_Staker 4y ago
  I fear for a world with illegal drugs. Plenty of people use stimulants and psychedelics as part of their religion, yet the courts have (IMO wrongly) allowed countless lives to be ruined because of it.
- droidist2 4y ago
  As someone who likes to vape, welcome to the party pal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OpIbiFmY60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OpIbiFmY60
vidanay 4y ago
Life is 100% fatal.
neverartful 4y ago
What was the first miracle performed by Jesus (as documented in the Christian bible)? Turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana (after they had run out of wine). Would Jesus have done this if alcohol consumption was against God's will? Food for thought. I'm not saying that God wants us to drink, but I think it provides some evidence that God doesn't view alcohol as inherently evil or bad (from Christian perspective). Abuse of alcohol is a different thing.
- zabzonk 4y ago
  and of course they have the sacrament of communion. does this mean they are all doomed?
- sharno 4y ago
  https://www.quora.com/Why-is-wine-banned-in-Islam-when-Jesus-Isa-drank-wine-in-the-last-supper-and-turned-water-to-wine https://www.quora.com/Why-is-wine-banned-in-Islam-when-Jesus...
danrl 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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voidfunc 4y ago
Scientists: Living is harmful.
virtualritz 4y ago
No level of precaution can make crossing a street safe.
cramjabsyn 4y ago
Doing dry jan this year helped to change my perspective on alcohol. My current outlook is that its fine outside the house as an enjoyable social thing, but drinking at home isn’t worth it. I’m sure that view will change over the years. There are so many things in life which no level is safe, exhaust fumes, microplastic exposure, radiation, the passage of time, the key to all of course is moderation and time between exposures. except that last one
Glyptodon 4y ago
Alcohol obviously causes more harm to society than guns and compared to guns has fewer beneficial uses.
2-718-281-828 4y ago
many here seem to get hung up about how even a tiny risk would technically justify the headline which therefore must be exaggerated when in fact it means first and foremost that alcohol consumption even in moderation is not good for you.
skeeter2020 4y ago
>> To identify a “safe” level of alcohol consumption, valid scientific evidence would need to demonstrate that at and below a certain level, there is no risk of illness or injury associated with alcohol consumption. This is ridiculous and boarders on intentionally false & misleading. We look for meaningful or demonstrated risk all the time in our assessments, not the absolute absense of it. This is typical WHO nonsense similar to their ongoing clanging of the Covid alarm.
auveair 4y ago
I think people are pretty tired of headlines like these tbh, it seems what it really say is "Alcohol risks are dose dependent" but it seems they wanted to go for a more ominous sounding headline, so the message is less effective.
jp57 4y ago
> Alcohol ... has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer decades ago – this is the highest risk group, which also includes asbestos, radiation and tobacco. But as I understand it we do have a notion of "safe" dosages of radiation. Isn't this statement then like saying "no level of exposure to radiation is safe for our health?" Maybe I'm wrong but I would think that the risk of cancer from radiation increases smoothly as the dosage increases such that "there is no threshold at which the carcinogenic effects 'switch on'". Thus, by extension, nobody should ever fly on an airplane because the increased radiation exposure is inherently unsafe. The thing is, we draw these threshold lines on smooth continua all the time. Nothing special happens to you at midnight on your eighteenth or twenty-first birthday. You are not meaningfully more intoxicated at 0.07 BAC than at 0.08. To the extent that we expect agencies like the WHO to help us make informed, practical decisions regarding this sort of absolutist statement seems like an abdication of that responsibility. It equates all drinking of any amount into a single class with no gradations, which is clearly false. Drinking a lot has a lot more risk than drinking a little. And drinking a little may add only a little risk to a life that's full of other risk.
- acidburnNSA 4y ago
  The linear no threshold model of harm for radiation is debated but is the foundation of all nuclear protection policies. To policy, zero radiation is considered best and all increments above that, regardless of size or relative comparison to natural background radiation are bad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model It's extremely hard to scientifically back this or challenge it due to the noise. Some people try to show that low dose radiation is measurably harmful while others try to show that it is beneficial (hormesis). The best science suggests that measurable, statistically significant harm (in the form of increased risk of lifetime cancer) begins around 100 mSv acute or 300 mSv over a period of time. If you get that, your lifetime risk of cancer goes from 42% baseline up to 43%. Natural background is about 3 mSv per year on average. https://nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/11340/beir_vii_final.pdf https://nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/11340/beir_vii_fi...
  - 4y ago
marcopicentini 4y ago
Where could I find a good nutrition plan for good health?
credit_guy 4y ago
This is such a silly attitude. Let's say if I drink 3 drinks per day I shorten my life expectancy by 5 years. And if I drink 3 drinks a year, I shorten my life expectancy by 5 seconds. Ok, no level is safe, but noone gives a damn about losing 5 seconds from their life expectancy.
motohagiography 4y ago
Societies that have banned alcohol, how do their longevity and other quality of life metrics and outcomes rank against ones where alcohol is available? In my late adolescence, an old friend and I had a joke about "champagne socialists," where we decided instead we would be "single malt anarchists," and we would meet at a hotels rooftop bar to drink whiskey we could barely afford, in a place we were barely welcome, and argue about how to solve the worlds problems. Who knew that decades later enjoying a few drams and a cigar would become a revolutionary act? If I could coin a term for all these bureaucratic false-concerns based on what they have in common (alcohol, meat, tobacco, cars, gas stoves, humor, firearms, nuclear families, heteronoramtivity, truth, etc.) it would be that they are all "anti-fraternal," and motivated by undermining the formation and relationships that historically present sources of resistance to political dominion. This advisory isn't about "health" or alcohol, it's a policy dogwhistle. Every single one of the people behind these pronouncements and organizations openly hates the idea of "bro's," or any group of men with a shared identity, and restricting access to alcohol is one of the key stages in consolidating a regime. I keep a bottle of blantons in a box somewhere for just in case the world ends, or descends into apocalyptic bedlam as a result of yet another one of historys antagonists finding their way. It would be a shame to open that box.
MailleQuiMaille 4y ago
I realized when I stopped drinking that I thought I needed it to take the edge off, to relax or to be more social. It was all lies. I turned to meditation for when I’m stressed, and the rest I can do it sober. I’d say not drinking anymore is top 5 in my best life decisions, up there with my choice of career and partner.
RalfWausE 4y ago
The problem is: No alcohol wozld be much more harmful for society these days... if i couldn't relax and unwind with a drink i would surely do something involving a chainsaw in a short matter of time...
spurgu 4y ago
The first thought I have reading this headline is: "No level of driving is safe for our health"
SergeAx 4y ago
Sipping my glass of Barolo, living dangerously!
indus 4y ago
“Alcohol blocks REM sleep, and as a result, says University of California, Berkeley, professor Matthew Walker[1], drinking can make you forget new information.” [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Walker_(scientist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Walker_(scientist) source: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/12/even-small-amounts-of-alcohol-impair-memory/548474/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/12/even-smal...
leonroy 4y ago
Out of curiosity I looked up cancer rates in Islamic countries (which typically) have far lower rates of alcohol consumption. Seems there is a significantly lower rate of cancer there by as much as 2-3x compared to countries in which alcohol is more widely consumed: https://jenci.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s43046-022-00142-3 https://jenci.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s43046-022-0... There are doubtless other factors at play but the data at least seems to correlate with the WHO's recommendation.
AlbinoDaffy 4y ago
After reading through comments, I'm just glad that Gen Z drinks less than Gen Y (that drinks less than Gen X (that drinks less than a subsequent gen, boomers probably)), because * I should not have to explain why I don't drink, simple 'no' suffices * I should not have to listen, that alcohol is not too bad/is completely harmless/is fine in moderation/is actually required in social life And the best thing - they do it completely voluntary (or maybe because it's crazy expensive, but the outcome is still good, so...) As for the local denialists: we live in poluted cities walking around polution generating machines just meters apart from them. Yes, it is unhealthy, but it is our choice to live like that, because EVs aren't that prevalent yet and living in the woods in a hut would not be enough for most Go, smoke cigarettes, drink wine and hit a pot once in a while if you need it. It's your life. 0 alcohol intake is a recomendation, not a requirement. It is harmful, people should consider for themselves if they need it as copium or for the taste or for whatever else reason It shouldn't be argued "but how much is bad-bad compared to just sligtly bad, where's my curve?". Make the curve for yourself, consider your situation and your needs
- thefz 4y ago
  Why does it always have to be a generation clash? Besides, nobody outside the Us thinks this way. You are being pushed one against each other.

209 points by indus 4y ago

Beverages which taste exactly the same but has no harmful alcohol or toxic side effects, would people still want the toxic version?

zabzonk 4y ago
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)
fernandotakai 4y ago
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.
theNJR 4y ago
There are plenty of such 0% and drinks and they aren’t nearly as popular. People are after the effects, the taste is secondary.
astura 4y ago
Non-alcoholic beer exists, is sold at bars, and is niche-popular. Obviously, most people go for the alcohol version. It doesn't taste exactly the same though - but similar.
deleted 4y ago
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amelius 4y ago

Not even a homeopathic quantity?

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coldtea 4y ago

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.

6d6b73 4y ago
[flagged]
- coldtea 4y ago
  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).
- FollowingTheDao 4y ago
  If you need to judge people for what they enjoy to have a joyful life I’m sorry for you.
- B8MGHCBekDuRi 4y ago
  if you think that enjoying stuff is bad, I'm sorry for you. I also don't need carbonara, pizza, gelato, the beach, snowboarding, my friends, my family to survive...
- berndi 4y ago
  The vast majority of people enjoy drinking and do so responsibly. 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.

kome 4y ago

[flagged]

chasd00 4y ago

Time consumption is 100% fatal

layer8 4y ago
The rate is a constant one second per second though, whereas with alcohol it's variable.

fredley 4y ago

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.

FollowingTheDao 4y ago
But that book does not suggest alcohol at any level is bad either. So if they are saying is news. And stupid ill-informed news.
phonescreen_man 4y ago
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?
- jowsie 4y ago
  He compared taking ecstasy to riding a horse in terms of danger. It's one of many things that led to him being sacked.
- CretinDesAlpes 4y ago
  Yes, he is known for this graph (The Lancet, 2010): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt#/media/File:HarmCausedByDrugsTable.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt#/media/File:HarmCau...
  - skeeter2020 4y ago
    Yikes! Alcohol looks like almost 75... harm units? I assume 100 is punching a kitten? I assume he was sacked for producing such a poor data visualization, or just the political "data" behind it?
    - 4y ago

zabzonk 4y ago

already had this, a couple of hours ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34751649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34751649

tester756 4y ago

Cool, maybe it'll help debunking those "small amounts of alcohol are healthly (from body standpoint)"

B8MGHCBekDuRi 4y ago
no need to debunk the truth. 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.
- diydsp 4y ago
  "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." https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/22/471416356/that-cabernet-might-not-be-good-for-your-health-after-all https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/22/4714163...

pard68 4y ago

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]."

B8MGHCBekDuRi 4y ago
You nailed it. 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-health-care.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/26/opinion/food-nutrition-he... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/opinion/sway-kara-swisher-michael-pollan.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/opinion/sway-kara-swisher...
- tmountain 4y ago
  “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.
- joseph_grobbles 4y ago
  [dead]

FollowingTheDao 4y ago

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.

blantonl 4y ago
Your grandfather was an alcoholic who lived to age 99
thehappypm 4y ago
Sneaking shots is alcoholic behavior.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  Or it's "keep the peace" behavior. A real alcoholic would have it in a water bottle. (inb4 no true scotsman)
- throwaway98797 4y ago
  what’s preferred a happy alcoholic or a sober know it all
- FollowingTheDao 4y ago
  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.
  - boomboomsubban 4y ago

joemazerino 4y ago

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. 1 - https://www.boston.com/news/health/2020/07/15/men-should-limit-alcohol-to-1-drink-a-day-not-2-say-new-guidelines/ https://www.boston.com/news/health/2020/07/15/men-should-lim...

bamboozled 4y ago
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.
- SeanLuke 4y ago
  > Anecdotally I know a lot of really old people who still drink. I know someone who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day who is almost 100 years old. Smoking is good or you!
  - bamboozled 4y ago
    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.
- 4y ago

bradleyjg 4y ago

The generational zeitgeist is ostentatious abnegation. This fits.

HEmanZ 4y ago
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
- bradleyjg 4y ago
  The 80s was famously about conspicuous consumption. Not everyone then, and there plenty of it now, but the zeitgeist isn’t a statistical metric.
__derek__ 4y ago
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."

paiute 4y ago

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.

lr4444lr 4y ago
Driving isn't hazardous to your health. Crashing is. That's like saying eating is unhealthy to your health because you might choke.
- kitten_mittens_ 4y ago
  Driving is hazardous to other people's health in the form of crashes AND pollution in the form of noise, dust, and exhaust.
  - paiute 4y ago
    ah snap! I was wrong. Driving is not safe at idle as well! So I should rephrase: A running car is never safe.
  - lstodd 4y ago
    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. How do you draw the line?
    - Fargren 4y ago
      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.

bigyikes 4y ago

> 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?

CommanderData 4y ago

There's a huge industry and lobby at odds. I drink less and less but I can't ignore its always in my face. 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 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pN6ksB3-QJ8 [2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gfjgISRI5E4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gfjgISRI5E4 [3] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qF0zM5MlmCw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qF0zM5MlmCw

rayiner 4y ago

And that doesn't include the externalized costs, such as increased domestic violence: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-50887893 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-50887893, impacts on children: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/18/even-moderate-drinking-by-parents-can-upset-children-study https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/18/even-moderat..., etc. Now that Americans are more docile it might be a good time to take another shot at alcohol prohibition: https://time.com/5501680/prohibition-history-feminism-suffrage-metoo https://time.com/5501680/prohibition-history-feminism-suffra....

auveair 4y ago
> And that doesn't include the externalized costs, such as increased domestic violence, impacts on children I have never seen someone who did those things drunk who didn't also do those things sober.
- rayiner 4y ago
  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.)
  - thebigspacefuck 4y ago
    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.
  - __derek__ 4y ago
    > 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.

sh4rks 4y ago

> 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 Half a litre of beer a day is considered "light"?

zabzonk 4y ago
it is where i come from - uk. also they don't say how many of those cancers can actually be attributed directly to alcohol consumption. my guess would be few.
- arlort 4y ago
  https://www.thelancet.com/article/S1470-2045(21)00279-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/article/S1470-2045(21)00279-5/full... > 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
  - zabzonk 4y ago
    that is "estimated"
    - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
      I don’t now how else you would do it. There isn’t any way to tell what caused any individual cancer, as far as I know.
subpixel 4y ago
That’s one bottle of beer. I’d call that light.
rco8786 4y ago
That’s basically 1 pint a day, or 16 oz as the ceiling for “light”. That seems reasonable? Not the amount necessarily just the classification.

thriftwy 4y ago

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?

Armisael16 4y ago
The human body also has ways to heal broken bones - are you arguing that it’s a waste to not use those as well? We’ve developed means to more effectively handle certain common poisons. That doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous.
- thriftwy 4y ago
  Bones need load to grow properly, and they will use the same mechanisms to grow strong. Poisons are neutralized but are not energy source (nutrient). Turns out, alcohol is.
Ekaros 4y ago
Body also can naturally remove the commonly occurring heavy metals. But that doesn't mean we should consume them just because such mechanisms exist.

VLM 4y ago

Cool now do this with refined sugars or high carb diets in general. It'll be the same discussion, addicts trying to rationalize away the science and statistics.

barbazoo 4y ago
> 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.
- VLM 4y ago
  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.
  - barbazoo 4y ago
    Sorry, what is H?
    - VLM 4y ago
      Heroin, my advice would be to not use it
P_I_Staker 4y ago
Carbs are great for you if you get the right carbs.
- VLM 4y ago
  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.

downvotetruth 4y ago

[flagged]

bikamonki 4y ago

We've been drinking fermented drinks for millenia and yet here we are: 8 billion strong. Shut up WHO ;)

hobo_mark 4y ago
Nobody claimed alcohol stops procreation, hell if anything it does the opposite.
- zabzonk 4y ago
  "depends how much alcohol", he said, somewhat floppily.
gus_massa 4y ago
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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_tolerance to see if you are more lucky.

z3t4 4y ago

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!?

layer8 4y ago
The question is, how much alcohol did they consume before becoming a millionaire, compared to the rest of the population. It might actually be less.
bjourne 4y ago
Do you think researchers are idiots?
- drukenemo 4y ago
  Being a researcher is not an immediate admission to being honest, integral and intelligent.
- friend_and_foe 4y ago
  A significant proportion of them are, unless you assume that proportion is just blatantly dishonest. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
  - bjourne 4y ago
    Most idiotic Hacker News take yet.
    - friend_and_foe 4y ago
      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?
      - 4y ago

hungryforcodes 4y ago

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?

lvl102 4y ago

If life wasn’t so miserable alcohol wouldn’t be so popular.

phonescreen_man 4y ago
Haha yeah nailed it. Plenty of good reasons to drink.

tinus_hn 4y ago

And people wonder why young people get lost in hard drugs when all science has to bring to the table is this kind of puritanical view.

quantified 4y ago
No frequency of driving to the store is safe, or jumping in the pool. Don't drink much. Beyond that, so what?
thebigspacefuck 4y ago
Alcohol is a hard drug.

rubyist5eva 4y ago

As I’m getting older I’ve basically had to swear off alchohol and marijuana completely. Even if I don’t get intoxicated (or stoned), I nearly always just feel like absolute garbage the next day (not hangover, just feel gross and groggy). Sometimes it’s lasted for days, even when I only have one drink or smoke barely enough weed to get a little buzzed. Fortunately I’ve also reached a point where I just don’t really feel good from being intoxicated either so I don’t really have a recreational incentive to do it anymore either. I don’t know how these things affect other people’s “sober lives” but if it’s anything like that I don’t see how people can function when getting intoxicated semi-regularly. The cost-benefit just seems completely lobsided.

misiti3780 4y ago
it's pretty simple, drink a lots of water while consuming and avoid high S02 + ABV based beverages.

jwmoz 4y ago

As someone currently suffering from a migraine after only drinking 2 cans of beer last night, I can attest to this.

aliqot 4y ago
you need to take better care of your body

kimjune01 4y ago

bread has alcohol in it. is it unsafe to eat bread?

barbazoo 4y ago
Residual if any at all. For now it remains safe to eat bread, yes.

tpmx 4y ago

Now do cannabis, WHO.

deepsquirrelnet 4y ago
https://www.who.int/teams/mental-health-and-substance-use/alcohol-drugs-and-addictive-behaviours/drugs-psychoactive/cannabis https://www.who.int/teams/mental-health-and-substance-use/al... https://www.who.int/teams/health-product-and-policy-standards/controlled-substances/who-review-of-cannabis-and-cannabis-related-substances https://www.who.int/teams/health-product-and-policy-standard... https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/cannabidiol-(compound-of-cannabis) https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/can... https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/ecdd-41-cannabis-recommendations https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/ecdd-41-cannabis-rec... https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/251056/9789241510240-eng.pdf https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/251056/9789...

barbazoo 4y ago

So much denialism going on here, it's like talking to my alcoholic relative. This shouldn't trigger such a strong reaction, if it does, one should look into why that is.

deleted 4y ago
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danrl 4y ago
I scrolled almost through the entire conversation. This is the first sane comment. Thank you.
RhysabOweyn 4y ago
Maybe read the well documented history of self-righteous teetotalers? It's not too hard to understand what the goal of this type of rhetoric is.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Lienetic 4y ago
  I'm genuinely curious - do you have some good references of this history I could read?
  - RhysabOweyn 4y ago
    Here’s a publicly available overview of the temperance movement and just how insane it was: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK216414/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK216414/
zabzonk 4y ago
being told what you should be doing by the self-righteous will tend to produce this effect
- barbazoo 4y ago

simple-thoughts 4y ago

Fruit juice also contains small amounts of ethanol, so if the WHO is correct then do not replace your wine with fruit juice. Or as is more likely, this is completely overblown just as the anti tobacco campaign has been overblown. Yes alcohol and tobacco aren’t good for you, no they are not imbued with magic properties where even 1 drop means cancer. This type of thinking is common in pre scientific communities, where an object or substance is imbued with “bad energy” and having even the smallest contact with it contaminated the individual.

misiti3780 4y ago
I mean, the WHO has such an amazing track record at this point, did everyone forget about their COVID failures: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-57085505 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-57085505

misiti3780 4y ago

i drink a bottle of wine every night with dinner. i dont think it's healthy, i do it because it tastes delicious and enhances the experience.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

VincentEvans 4y ago

I am sure this is absolutely the last scientific paper that comes out completely reversing the conclusion of the papers that came out before. This time they did it!

rr808 4y ago

Is alcohol essential for a good social life? Growing up in Europe it definitely was a big part of it. Now I look at my younger colleagues in the US and many never drink, rarely go out and are lonely and single. But maybe healthier?

zabzonk 4y ago
being lonely is not so healthy. neither is sitting glued to your phone or console. might be better nursing a beer in a bar, watching football.

hackandthink 4y ago

David Spiegelhalter of BUGS fame: "So a total of 50,000 bottles of gin among these 1,600 people is associated with one extra health problem. Which still indicates a very low level of harm in drinkers drinking just more than the UK guidelines." https://medium.com/wintoncentre/the-risks-of-alcohol-again-2ae8cb006a4a https://medium.com/wintoncentre/the-risks-of-alcohol-again-2... The WHO is fear mongering. Maybe it is good health politics, people are scared of alcohol and people will have a better live. Maybe it would be better to communicate the risks more quantitavily. Not everyone is stupid.

ac29 4y ago
The way these risks are reported often makes this mistake. A statistically significant difference is reported as a "significant" difference, which means something different to lay people. For example, if a change in diet increases the chances of getting a specific cancer from 1 in 1000 to 1.5 in 1000, that very well may be statistically significant. But, your odds of not getting that cancer go from 99.9% to 99.85%, which most people would not consider to be a meaningful difference.

hprotagonist 4y ago

All things in moderation, including moderation. neopuritans be damned.

deepsquirrelnet 4y ago
Except meth. Not even once. But seriously, I’m fully on board with this sentiment. I’m so tired of everything quickly going to extremes. I’m glad to know alcohol has risks at any level. I’ll take that information and use it how I see fit. Same with cannabis, same with sugar, same with adult content, same with lead-containing enamel on my plates. Give me the information I need and let me be responsible for myself. Awareness of risks is what we should be doing. Forcing people into padded rooms so they don’t hurt themselves is not.
- hprotagonist 4y ago
  > Except meth. Not even once. Unless you happen to be a hungarian mathematician, in which case: have at!

ohyes 4y ago

It’s good we’re clear on this, let’s not attempt prohibition again please.

JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago

1) The word 'health' should not be used because that's just a buzzword. The right word in this context could tentatively be 'lifespan', meaning that they are tentatively projecting that in the big sample of humans they surveyed those who drink 0mL of alcohol will stick around for longer compared to those who drink even 1mL. Meaning that in their model there is a correlation between the 2 data of sticking around for longer and alcohol intake. 2) Not even lifespan could be the right word because there are all sorts of stuff that alcohol facilitates which prolong lifespan by decreasing stress and anxiety, which in turn lower cortisol which is just as bad for lifespan when considered vis-a-vis alcohol. As always the so called authorities spend too much time in the lab and are essentially monodimensional individuals who (no pun intended) fail to see the bigger picture.

makeitdouble 4y ago

> To identify a “safe” level of alcohol consumption, valid scientific evidence would need to demonstrate that at and below a certain level, there is no risk of illness or injury associated with alcohol consumption. The premise of this “no level of consumption is safe” is this requirement to prove 0 risk. If for instance drinking one glass everyday increases your cancer chances by 0.0000000001%, bringing it to 0. 0000300001%, it would still be considered unsafe, as your chances of cancer increased. I see the logic, but that isn’t layman‘s categorization of safe or unsafe. And what are the actual base risk of cancer for a healthy individual ? Taking a base of 60 million death per year, who’s numbers on cancer are of 10 million [0], where death by liver cancer are 830 000, roughly 1%. Given that those don’t all come from alcohol, and to reach that stage requires way more than standard consumption, the base risk feels already pretty low. All in all, while this article is factual, it turns this facts in such a biased way it feels dogmatic at times. If we’re going to have serious discussions around alcohol, we shouldn’t start them like this. [0] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cancer https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cancer

P_I_Staker 4y ago
Should we be establishing safe amounts of cigarette smoking? Safe amounts of gasoline to drink? Alcohol users really don't like people pointing out that their habit isn't safe.
- skeeter2020 4y ago
  and yet we do this all the time. Your city probably produces an air quality alert that has some form of ranges; I doubt it says "one particulate of pollution found in the air; stop breathing!".
- caskstrength 4y ago
  > Alcohol users really don't like people pointing out that their habit isn't safe. In my experience that is because people who point that out usually eat all kinds of crap full of sugar and transfats, drink bubbly-sugary drinks (is Coke even better than a good beer?), live in noisy polluted cities and often work themselves to death for status or 3rd car for their family or whatever. But somehow my couple of bottles of beer on weekend is a health emergency and we need to tax it 1000% and only allow to sell if from 9 to 10 am on Mondays or something...

P_I_Staker 4y ago

Yup. All those sick quitters severely fucked up the studies.

treespace8 4y ago

I fear for a world where alcohol is banned. I feel modern society is built on it. A human is the only animal that is aware they will die. Also unique to humans is that we think about what others think. This makes us very anxious. Alcohol is a known way to relax. It helps calm our minds down. No it's not good for our bodies. But it's very healthy to relax.

P_I_Staker 4y ago
I fear for a world with illegal drugs. Plenty of people use stimulants and psychedelics as part of their religion, yet the courts have (IMO wrongly) allowed countless lives to be ruined because of it.
droidist2 4y ago
As someone who likes to vape, welcome to the party pal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OpIbiFmY60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OpIbiFmY60

vidanay 4y ago

Life is 100% fatal.

neverartful 4y ago

What was the first miracle performed by Jesus (as documented in the Christian bible)? Turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana (after they had run out of wine). Would Jesus have done this if alcohol consumption was against God's will? Food for thought. I'm not saying that God wants us to drink, but I think it provides some evidence that God doesn't view alcohol as inherently evil or bad (from Christian perspective). Abuse of alcohol is a different thing.

zabzonk 4y ago
and of course they have the sacrament of communion. does this mean they are all doomed?
sharno 4y ago
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-wine-banned-in-Islam-when-Jesus-Isa-drank-wine-in-the-last-supper-and-turned-water-to-wine https://www.quora.com/Why-is-wine-banned-in-Islam-when-Jesus...

danrl 4y ago

[flagged]

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

voidfunc 4y ago

Scientists: Living is harmful.

virtualritz 4y ago

No level of precaution can make crossing a street safe.

cramjabsyn 4y ago

Doing dry jan this year helped to change my perspective on alcohol. My current outlook is that its fine outside the house as an enjoyable social thing, but drinking at home isn’t worth it. I’m sure that view will change over the years. There are so many things in life which no level is safe, exhaust fumes, microplastic exposure, radiation, the passage of time, the key to all of course is moderation and time between exposures. except that last one

Glyptodon 4y ago

Alcohol obviously causes more harm to society than guns and compared to guns has fewer beneficial uses.

2-718-281-828 4y ago

many here seem to get hung up about how even a tiny risk would technically justify the headline which therefore must be exaggerated when in fact it means first and foremost that alcohol consumption even in moderation is not good for you.

skeeter2020 4y ago

>> To identify a “safe” level of alcohol consumption, valid scientific evidence would need to demonstrate that at and below a certain level, there is no risk of illness or injury associated with alcohol consumption. This is ridiculous and boarders on intentionally false & misleading. We look for meaningful or demonstrated risk all the time in our assessments, not the absolute absense of it. This is typical WHO nonsense similar to their ongoing clanging of the Covid alarm.

auveair 4y ago

I think people are pretty tired of headlines like these tbh, it seems what it really say is "Alcohol risks are dose dependent" but it seems they wanted to go for a more ominous sounding headline, so the message is less effective.

jp57 4y ago

> Alcohol ... has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer decades ago – this is the highest risk group, which also includes asbestos, radiation and tobacco. But as I understand it we do have a notion of "safe" dosages of radiation. Isn't this statement then like saying "no level of exposure to radiation is safe for our health?" Maybe I'm wrong but I would think that the risk of cancer from radiation increases smoothly as the dosage increases such that "there is no threshold at which the carcinogenic effects 'switch on'". Thus, by extension, nobody should ever fly on an airplane because the increased radiation exposure is inherently unsafe. The thing is, we draw these threshold lines on smooth continua all the time. Nothing special happens to you at midnight on your eighteenth or twenty-first birthday. You are not meaningfully more intoxicated at 0.07 BAC than at 0.08. To the extent that we expect agencies like the WHO to help us make informed, practical decisions regarding this sort of absolutist statement seems like an abdication of that responsibility. It equates all drinking of any amount into a single class with no gradations, which is clearly false. Drinking a lot has a lot more risk than drinking a little. And drinking a little may add only a little risk to a life that's full of other risk.

acidburnNSA 4y ago
The linear no threshold model of harm for radiation is debated but is the foundation of all nuclear protection policies. To policy, zero radiation is considered best and all increments above that, regardless of size or relative comparison to natural background radiation are bad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model It's extremely hard to scientifically back this or challenge it due to the noise. Some people try to show that low dose radiation is measurably harmful while others try to show that it is beneficial (hormesis). The best science suggests that measurable, statistically significant harm (in the form of increased risk of lifetime cancer) begins around 100 mSv acute or 300 mSv over a period of time. If you get that, your lifetime risk of cancer goes from 42% baseline up to 43%. Natural background is about 3 mSv per year on average. https://nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/11340/beir_vii_final.pdf https://nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/11340/beir_vii_fi...
- 4y ago

marcopicentini 4y ago

Where could I find a good nutrition plan for good health?

credit_guy 4y ago

This is such a silly attitude. Let's say if I drink 3 drinks per day I shorten my life expectancy by 5 years. And if I drink 3 drinks a year, I shorten my life expectancy by 5 seconds. Ok, no level is safe, but noone gives a damn about losing 5 seconds from their life expectancy.

motohagiography 4y ago

Societies that have banned alcohol, how do their longevity and other quality of life metrics and outcomes rank against ones where alcohol is available? In my late adolescence, an old friend and I had a joke about "champagne socialists," where we decided instead we would be "single malt anarchists," and we would meet at a hotels rooftop bar to drink whiskey we could barely afford, in a place we were barely welcome, and argue about how to solve the worlds problems. Who knew that decades later enjoying a few drams and a cigar would become a revolutionary act? If I could coin a term for all these bureaucratic false-concerns based on what they have in common (alcohol, meat, tobacco, cars, gas stoves, humor, firearms, nuclear families, heteronoramtivity, truth, etc.) it would be that they are all "anti-fraternal," and motivated by undermining the formation and relationships that historically present sources of resistance to political dominion. This advisory isn't about "health" or alcohol, it's a policy dogwhistle. Every single one of the people behind these pronouncements and organizations openly hates the idea of "bro's," or any group of men with a shared identity, and restricting access to alcohol is one of the key stages in consolidating a regime. I keep a bottle of blantons in a box somewhere for just in case the world ends, or descends into apocalyptic bedlam as a result of yet another one of historys antagonists finding their way. It would be a shame to open that box.

MailleQuiMaille 4y ago

I realized when I stopped drinking that I thought I needed it to take the edge off, to relax or to be more social. It was all lies. I turned to meditation for when I’m stressed, and the rest I can do it sober. I’d say not drinking anymore is top 5 in my best life decisions, up there with my choice of career and partner.

RalfWausE 4y ago

The problem is: No alcohol wozld be much more harmful for society these days... if i couldn't relax and unwind with a drink i would surely do something involving a chainsaw in a short matter of time...

spurgu 4y ago

The first thought I have reading this headline is: "No level of driving is safe for our health"

SergeAx 4y ago

Sipping my glass of Barolo, living dangerously!

indus 4y ago

“Alcohol blocks REM sleep, and as a result, says University of California, Berkeley, professor Matthew Walker[1], drinking can make you forget new information.” [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Walker_(scientist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Walker_(scientist) source: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/12/even-small-amounts-of-alcohol-impair-memory/548474/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/12/even-smal...

leonroy 4y ago

Out of curiosity I looked up cancer rates in Islamic countries (which typically) have far lower rates of alcohol consumption. Seems there is a significantly lower rate of cancer there by as much as 2-3x compared to countries in which alcohol is more widely consumed: https://jenci.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s43046-022-00142-3 https://jenci.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s43046-022-0... There are doubtless other factors at play but the data at least seems to correlate with the WHO's recommendation.

AlbinoDaffy 4y ago

After reading through comments, I'm just glad that Gen Z drinks less than Gen Y (that drinks less than Gen X (that drinks less than a subsequent gen, boomers probably)), because * I should not have to explain why I don't drink, simple 'no' suffices * I should not have to listen, that alcohol is not too bad/is completely harmless/is fine in moderation/is actually required in social life And the best thing - they do it completely voluntary (or maybe because it's crazy expensive, but the outcome is still good, so...) As for the local denialists: we live in poluted cities walking around polution generating machines just meters apart from them. Yes, it is unhealthy, but it is our choice to live like that, because EVs aren't that prevalent yet and living in the woods in a hut would not be enough for most Go, smoke cigarettes, drink wine and hit a pot once in a while if you need it. It's your life. 0 alcohol intake is a recomendation, not a requirement. It is harmful, people should consider for themselves if they need it as copium or for the taste or for whatever else reason It shouldn't be argued "but how much is bad-bad compared to just sligtly bad, where's my curve?". Make the curve for yourself, consider your situation and your needs

thefz 4y ago
Why does it always have to be a generation clash? Besides, nobody outside the Us thinks this way. You are being pushed one against each other.