7 ms·

The big alcohol study that didn't happen (2021)

2Gkashmiri 3y ago
look. this is going to sound unpopular but is there a study that compares effects of alcohol in general as compared to non alcohol consuming nations? like around 1.2-1.5 billion people who call themselves muslims abstain from alcohol so there should be significantly less effects of the diseases associated with alcohol consumption in those places. like i can say this with certainty, in my city, there is NEVER DUI accidents. We just have never heard of them. Same for alcohol induced Cirrhosis. We just don't have that. Neither do we have alcohol overdose or an alcohol epidemic that requires assistance of alcoholic anonymous and other groups. Those problems simply do not exist so that is something objective i can share without a need for a study
- selimthegrim 3y ago
  Is it true people won’t even use alcohol as disinfectant?
  - 2Gkashmiri 3y ago
    nope. total BS. you know something about denatured alcohol. It cant be consumed so its fine for any use. like COVID brought hand sanitizers everywhere and it caused no problems.
    - mcmoor 3y ago
      Can you explain a bit about denatured alcohol? I searched about alcohol in hand sanitizer but didn't find anything useful
      - fsckboy 3y ago
        denatured: (2) Of alcohol made undrinkable, by adding a toxin or unpalatable substance, but still useful as a fuel or solvent. Traditionally by the addition of methanol (wood alcohol) to ethanol (grain alcohol). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/denatured https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/denatured seems like there should be more information here, but I didn't look https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol
        mcmoor 3y ago
        Wait, shouldn't hand sanitizer food-grade? Wouldn't making it poisonous be very dangerous?
        fsckboy 3y ago
        only poisonous in quantity, small amounts like from your hand would be tolerable. We just don't want alcoholics drinking a whole bottle to feed their addiction and then winding up blind.
      - tomnipotent 3y ago
        In the US, hand sanitizer must be mostly ethanol or isopropyl alcohol. They're denatured to make unsafe for consumption and avoid certain classes of taxes on alcoholic beverages.
    - paleface 3y ago
      > nope. total BS. It’s not total bullshit, whatsoever. I’ve known a good few Muslims, who would not use alcohol, as either a disinfectant, or topical liniment - due to their Wahhabi interpretation, of the Quran. There’s a whole thread, from over a decade ago, on a Kung Fu forum, where a “revert” went into depth, about why he could not purchase, or create a bruise liniment, from ethanol, because he claimed it went against the Quran. This despite the fact, the end product would be highly poisonous, and thereby de facto denatured… I’ve also trained with people, who would only use liniments made from vinegar, as the base, for similar reasons. So yes - some Muslims, will not use any alcohol products, whatsoever, for any reason!
      - foodhere 3y ago
        >due to their Wahhabi interpretation, of the Quran. This is not necessarily the case. For example, the Shafi'i school of jurispudence deems all liquid intoxicants are impure (as in, physically) and impermissible to trade in regardless of source. The only path to purity is turning say wine into vinegar (though there is some nuance here). This school has a very rich history and has existed far long before ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab was born and is followed by the majority of Muslims in south east Asia, Jordan and parts of the Levant, Kurdistan, the Caucasus, Somalia, and other places. Due to the prevalence of liquid intoxicants in modern manufacturing and the world at large, sometimes scholars of this school deem the presence of intoxicants in certain products excusable to use under certain conditions. This is according to pre-existing principles regarding difficulty, need, etc. (rather than "clergymen making things up"). As a side note, amongst "Wahhabis", jurispudence is not universal, unlike theology. For example, you can find people who may be called a "Shafi'i Wahhabi", i.e., a Wahhabi that follows the Shafi'i school of jurispudence. Though the term Wahhabi isn't typically appreciated by them. There is a style of jurispudence that is mostly popular amongst them (and not most other Muslims), however it is does not necessarily lead to "harsh" or strict views that outsiders assume of them.
        paleface 3y ago
        Hi - it wasn’t my intention, to insinuate that that Wahhabi dogma, is universally interpreted - but merely to demonstrate that some Muslims, do indeed eschew alcohol, in any form. I have grown up, around Muslims, all my life - and I know for a fact, the person whom I referred to, in my earlier anecdote, was a follower of the Wahhabi doctrine - and gave me his reasoning as to why he couldn’t use alcohol based liniments, as such.
    - selimthegrim 3y ago
      Someone had been relating story about bus driver in Islamabad/Anantnag who wouldn’t
  - foodhere 3y ago
    Some Muslims deem that acceptable, some do not. The former view, anecdotally, seems to be the overwhelmingly more popular view (though even those adopting this view can differ in reasoning).
  - ak_111 3y ago
    There is a general license in islamic theology that when it comes to life and death situations you are allowed to break almost any of the rules temporarily (survival overrides close to any other religious obligation/rule). This includes eating pork and drinking alcohol (say if they are the only food beverages available, or if you need to drink alcohol to manage exceptional medical conditions). So it is likely you can make an argument for alcohol as disinfectant if it is the only one available with its impact/cost.
- luizsantana 3y ago
  The problem is that is not one to one. And isolating diet is very hard. Muslin countries don’t do alcohol, but they smoke a lot more than in comparison to some other countries. As well as different general diet behaviours. So as much as your idea has some logic, it is still very hard to get the right picture. And now if we all are being honest, most of those studies are done with intention of understanding how much one can drink with much harm. So comparing a group of people who doesn’t drink at all with one that drink is not the correct data points. We all know that alcohol is bad. If people want to be healthy they can simply not drink. We don’t do studies to understand “how many cigarettes a day is good for your health” we simple know the best amount is zero. But alcohol is deep into our society habits
- bzzzt 3y ago
  > like around 1.2-1.5 billion people who call themselves muslims abstain from alcohol Right, and all 2.4 billion people who call themselves christians all love their neighbors? > We just have never heard of them. You can read that in two very different ways. While I presume there will be less incidents if alcohol use and especially alcohol abuse is not normalized in a society there are lots of people calling themselves muslims in the world that did or do drink alcohol.
  - 2Gkashmiri 3y ago
    >there are lots of people calling themselves muslims in the world that did or do drink alcohol. i am saying the societal pressure TO DRINK is not present in 1.5 billion people. someone who wants to still go ahead and drink isn't being discussed.
    - strken 3y ago
      Someone who drinks must be discussed if you're designing a study about the effects of alcohol. The reason is irrelevant. One can, for example, imagine a world where a culture of covert hidden drinking in specific Muslim countries gives the proposed benefits of moderate drinking to some of the population. A study that assumed no Muslims drank would thus be flawed because it would include a group that actually was drinking all along.
      - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
        > A study that assumed no Muslims drank would thus be flawed Well gee, I guess you're right. If only there were some sort of test to determine if a person had been drinking, and how much alcohol they'd had. Someone should get right on that.
        rajamaka 3y ago
        What test that can determine someone has never drank alcohol?
- graemep 3y ago
  You cannot rely on all Muslims not having alcohol. Most Muslims I know (not an unbiased sample for multiple reasons!) do drink alcohol. Social pressure may mean people drink with friends but not in front of family or their community, or keep alcohol in their bedrooms and drink alone? Both certainly happen (no idea how much, probably varies wildly between communities). > in my city, there is NEVER DUI accidents. We just have never heard of them How often are drivers tested for alcohol? How good is prosecution and reporting? Can people bribe their way out if caught? > Neither do we have alcohol overdose or an alcohol epidemic that requires assistance of alcoholic anonymous and other groups. Again, you may the the problems but not the help because the existence of the problem is not publicly acknowledged. It is even worse of you try to compare on a national level. There might be smuggling and home brewing. Most importantly, any religion will cause multiple lifestyle changes. In the case of Islam some are obvious - not eating pork, Ramadan fasts, prayer times. Religious ideas change attitudes to sex, money and career, family life - pretty much your entire lifestyle. It is even worse on a national level. A lot of differences between the US and the UK can be traced to differences in the different branches of the same religion that was dominant. The most obvious is politics. In the 80s and 90s the largest Christian church in the UK was criticising the government for policies it regarded as not fair on the poor (welfare spending etc.) and most people belonging to the second largest voted for an outright socialist party. We do not even have a noticeable "religious right". Different from the US! More relevant to the topic at hand is the huge and obvious difference in attitudes to alcohol. Similar differences between historically Catholic and protestant countries in Europe.
  - xorcist 3y ago
    There's a lot to say about how the right took over large parts of Christianity in the US. It seems to have been in the right backwater of the counterculture and very much on purpose. Before, Christians in the US were very much like Christians in the rest of the world. Taking care of the poor is a central tenet of Jesus' teachings.
NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
It may not be possible to separate out the effects of ethanol itself from the effects of the toxins and adulterants that are routinely added to alcoholic beverages at all stages. You see, alcoholic beverages are shielded from most all of the FDA's labeling requirements in these United States, and so if you pick up a bottle of beer, or wine or hard liquor, they don't really have to tell you anything about what's in it, other than the proof and the general category of booze where it fits in. Of course you have absinthe, which was notoriously adulterated with all sorts of horrible stuff and subsequently banned/regulated out of existence, but I feel like even Bud Light comes with its own profile of nasty crap, just like any other processed food you will eat. So-called "German Beer Purity Laws" can't really protect the drinker from consuming nasty adulterants alongside that sweet, sweet alcohol they need to cope with their miserable lives.
- CalRobert 3y ago
  What are you referring to? I made homebrew for a while and never needed adulterants, unless you mean finings or similar?
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    Of course you don't need them! That's the point, isn't it?
  - icameron 3y ago
    Maybe because there are hundreds or thousands of compounds that can be produced during fermentation, higher alcohols, toxins, flavonoids, aminos, besides ethanol. It’s such a complicated biological process. Especially under home brewing conditions where many variables are not as closely controlled, sanitized, or monitored. Generally there are far more chemicals in fermented beverages, some toxic and carcinogenic to varying degrees. Many relatively harmless or even healthy too.
    - CalRobert 3y ago
      OK but something that arises during fermentation doesn't seem like it meets the description "adulterant". Maybe I'm being semantic.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ponderings 3y ago
I eventually almost forgot about the topic and was just amazed by the effort that went into making this this readable. Someone told me about a paper long ago. It compared 2 groups of heavy drinkers, one drinking mostly fancy wines with elaborate expensive meals and the other drinking mostly beer while eating out of a deep fryer. The banquet winos consumed more alcohol per day but had much better health. They also tested both diets on rats with the same result. I suppose the moral of the study was that nutrition has such a large effect on health that alcohol hardly makes a difference, even in large amounts.
- adrianN 3y ago
  Unless they compared both groups to a good control I don’t think you can conclude that.
  - ponderings 3y ago
    It's more practical than a 100 m feel good study to justify drinking. People are going to drink regardless. If you do, eat well.
mpweiher 3y ago
Hmm…so it’s about explaining that “dip” for low doses. I thought that was explained a long time ago: when you have certain diseases, the first thing your doctor will do is tell you to stop drinking alcohol. So you get more sick people in the “no alcohol” group, despite alcohol being harmful at any dosage. Confirmed by the ADH1B study that TFA dismisses as “inconclusive” without any good reason that I could see, despite there being another study coming to the same conclusion. Not being satisfied with labeling two perfectly fine studies as “inconclusive” for no good reason, he then strengthens that to claim that the alcohol-harmful-at-any-dose hypothesis is plain “wrong”. Again without giving any reasons. Huh? Just a weird article.
- pflenker 3y ago
  Misunderstanding this fact that you described makes its rounds here in Germany every 2-5 years with media claiming that moderate drinking is good for your health because the mortality of the „no alcohol“ group is higher even though as you pointed out it includes more sick persons.
- rpmisms 3y ago
  Alternatively, alcohol in low doses is healthy. Humans have been drinking alcohol for most of recorded history, it stands to reason that we'd have developed some sort of tolerance/affinity for it.
  - mpweiher 3y ago
    No, not really. I guess I didn't explain that once they figured out what the confounding variable was, they controlled for it and the dip disappeared. Given that, the ADH1B study and the other study mentioned in the article, the evidence is strong and completely one-sided. Having a tolerance just means harmful effects are less pronounced, not that there is a benefit.
taopai 3y ago
I just did MDMA 3 times in my life with controlled dose and environment. I don't recommend drug use. When I first tried it I just realized alcohol is not fun. In fact is a shitty drug. We think we are having a good time because everybody drinks, and that's what you do, and it's so tied to our social life. But If we hang out more, and didn't used like a social crutch we'll surely have the same or more fun. Lately I found that coffee make's me much more fun than some beers, I am very sensitive to coffee. I have a BLAST, and also people around me, while with +4 beers I laugh a little but I become kind of numbed, lazy funny, as I say. I hope this is not off topic. But when talking about alcohol I think that the problem is how it's seen socially.
- bowsamic 3y ago
  It really depends on the person. I’m like you to a degree (though it depends what I’m doing) but I know people who literally get energised the more alcohol they drink. Friends ordering a huge round of drinks at 4am just as the bar is closing, etc. I’ve also had times on alcohol which were pretty euphoric and not that far from MDMA. Also we have to consider what it does to sex, which is quite amazing. Alcohol is a delicate balancing act though. For example, if I’m in a good mood and we’re doing something reasonably active it’s amazing, but if I’m just drinking on the sofa I just become more lethargic.
- mettamage 3y ago
  Matcha is my favorite work drug. Caffeine is one of my favorite party drugs, especially a Club Mate (or 6, over the whole night from 11 PM to 7 AM in the morning) does the trick. The Wim Hof Method is also an amazing drug (adrenaline). It's all drugs. This just happens to be legal. Alcohol sucks. Weed isn't great. Truffles (wherever legal), meh, over it. n = 1, my experience Meditation does a lot to me. It doen't to others. Aka everyone is different. I don't recommend drugs either. If you do, make sure you do it at a decriminalized place at least. For me though, every decriminalized thing I've tried has been really helpful. One time I almost wanted to commit suicide (second psilocybin trip), so to say it's not for the faint of heart is a euphenistic understatement. Even that trip showed me I was in a very toxic relationship. To get a life scare was the right response, I'd have gone that way sober as well, what psilocybin did in a day would've taken years when sober (speaking from experience unfortunately). I have parents, who used to be both addicts. I didn't inherit their addiction, it seems. I do have their genes. It makes me hypothesize that genetic inheritability is less of a factor. I've not been raised by them and because of it my socio-economic-status is completely different. Though, if I look at social media, I'd argue that is my addiction. I think starting late (even with alcohol) and getting a university education really helps. It also helps my social circle is scared of any form of drugs (other than caffeine) and it's hard for me to find a good setting. I'm in favor of drug legalization over 30. Wim Hof, meditation, music, running, dancing, dreaming, lucid dreaming (dream journal!) and being sleep deprived Those are all good analogues for any form of drugs. I'm playing around with starting a startup over this and contributing the money towards comparative research between these states of consciousness versus actual drug states. Feel free to email if you're up for talking about that.
rimeice 3y ago
Brilliant summary. Still not sure why the NIAAA couldn’t fund this themselves though? Just from the name, it seems like the only trial they should be interested in. I don’t understand why NIAAA employees would go out and pitch this to industry, I can understand why industry might try and lobby their way in there when they got wind of it happening. Just seems like there’s something missing from the story there.
anjel 3y ago
Edge case: Actor Dick Van Dyke quit a heavy drinking habit in his mid 40s. He quit smoking cigarettes at 75. He's 98 this year. See also, George Burns. It must be the acting.

look. this is going to sound unpopular but is there a study that compares effects of alcohol in general as compared to non alcohol consuming nations? like around 1.2-1.5 billion people who call themselves muslims abstain from alcohol so there should be significantly less effects of the diseases associated with alcohol consumption in those places. like i can say this with certainty, in my city, there is NEVER DUI accidents. We just have never heard of them. Same for alcohol induced Cirrhosis. We just don't have that. Neither do we have alcohol overdose or an alcohol epidemic that requires assistance of alcoholic anonymous and other groups. Those problems simply do not exist so that is something objective i can share without a need for a study

selimthegrim 3y ago
Is it true people won’t even use alcohol as disinfectant?
- 2Gkashmiri 3y ago
  nope. total BS. you know something about denatured alcohol. It cant be consumed so its fine for any use. like COVID brought hand sanitizers everywhere and it caused no problems.
  - mcmoor 3y ago
    Can you explain a bit about denatured alcohol? I searched about alcohol in hand sanitizer but didn't find anything useful
    - fsckboy 3y ago
      denatured: (2) Of alcohol made undrinkable, by adding a toxin or unpalatable substance, but still useful as a fuel or solvent. Traditionally by the addition of methanol (wood alcohol) to ethanol (grain alcohol). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/denatured https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/denatured seems like there should be more information here, but I didn't look https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol
      - mcmoor 3y ago
        Wait, shouldn't hand sanitizer food-grade? Wouldn't making it poisonous be very dangerous?
        fsckboy 3y ago
        only poisonous in quantity, small amounts like from your hand would be tolerable. We just don't want alcoholics drinking a whole bottle to feed their addiction and then winding up blind.
    - tomnipotent 3y ago
      In the US, hand sanitizer must be mostly ethanol or isopropyl alcohol. They're denatured to make unsafe for consumption and avoid certain classes of taxes on alcoholic beverages.
  - paleface 3y ago
    > nope. total BS. It’s not total bullshit, whatsoever. I’ve known a good few Muslims, who would not use alcohol, as either a disinfectant, or topical liniment - due to their Wahhabi interpretation, of the Quran. There’s a whole thread, from over a decade ago, on a Kung Fu forum, where a “revert” went into depth, about why he could not purchase, or create a bruise liniment, from ethanol, because he claimed it went against the Quran. This despite the fact, the end product would be highly poisonous, and thereby de facto denatured… I’ve also trained with people, who would only use liniments made from vinegar, as the base, for similar reasons. So yes - some Muslims, will not use any alcohol products, whatsoever, for any reason!
    - foodhere 3y ago
      >due to their Wahhabi interpretation, of the Quran. This is not necessarily the case. For example, the Shafi'i school of jurispudence deems all liquid intoxicants are impure (as in, physically) and impermissible to trade in regardless of source. The only path to purity is turning say wine into vinegar (though there is some nuance here). This school has a very rich history and has existed far long before ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab was born and is followed by the majority of Muslims in south east Asia, Jordan and parts of the Levant, Kurdistan, the Caucasus, Somalia, and other places. Due to the prevalence of liquid intoxicants in modern manufacturing and the world at large, sometimes scholars of this school deem the presence of intoxicants in certain products excusable to use under certain conditions. This is according to pre-existing principles regarding difficulty, need, etc. (rather than "clergymen making things up"). As a side note, amongst "Wahhabis", jurispudence is not universal, unlike theology. For example, you can find people who may be called a "Shafi'i Wahhabi", i.e., a Wahhabi that follows the Shafi'i school of jurispudence. Though the term Wahhabi isn't typically appreciated by them. There is a style of jurispudence that is mostly popular amongst them (and not most other Muslims), however it is does not necessarily lead to "harsh" or strict views that outsiders assume of them.
      - paleface 3y ago
        Hi - it wasn’t my intention, to insinuate that that Wahhabi dogma, is universally interpreted - but merely to demonstrate that some Muslims, do indeed eschew alcohol, in any form. I have grown up, around Muslims, all my life - and I know for a fact, the person whom I referred to, in my earlier anecdote, was a follower of the Wahhabi doctrine - and gave me his reasoning as to why he couldn’t use alcohol based liniments, as such.
  - selimthegrim 3y ago
    Someone had been relating story about bus driver in Islamabad/Anantnag who wouldn’t
- foodhere 3y ago
  Some Muslims deem that acceptable, some do not. The former view, anecdotally, seems to be the overwhelmingly more popular view (though even those adopting this view can differ in reasoning).
- ak_111 3y ago
  There is a general license in islamic theology that when it comes to life and death situations you are allowed to break almost any of the rules temporarily (survival overrides close to any other religious obligation/rule). This includes eating pork and drinking alcohol (say if they are the only food beverages available, or if you need to drink alcohol to manage exceptional medical conditions). So it is likely you can make an argument for alcohol as disinfectant if it is the only one available with its impact/cost.
luizsantana 3y ago
The problem is that is not one to one. And isolating diet is very hard. Muslin countries don’t do alcohol, but they smoke a lot more than in comparison to some other countries. As well as different general diet behaviours. So as much as your idea has some logic, it is still very hard to get the right picture. And now if we all are being honest, most of those studies are done with intention of understanding how much one can drink with much harm. So comparing a group of people who doesn’t drink at all with one that drink is not the correct data points. We all know that alcohol is bad. If people want to be healthy they can simply not drink. We don’t do studies to understand “how many cigarettes a day is good for your health” we simple know the best amount is zero. But alcohol is deep into our society habits
bzzzt 3y ago
> like around 1.2-1.5 billion people who call themselves muslims abstain from alcohol Right, and all 2.4 billion people who call themselves christians all love their neighbors? > We just have never heard of them. You can read that in two very different ways. While I presume there will be less incidents if alcohol use and especially alcohol abuse is not normalized in a society there are lots of people calling themselves muslims in the world that did or do drink alcohol.
- 2Gkashmiri 3y ago
  >there are lots of people calling themselves muslims in the world that did or do drink alcohol. i am saying the societal pressure TO DRINK is not present in 1.5 billion people. someone who wants to still go ahead and drink isn't being discussed.
  - strken 3y ago
    Someone who drinks must be discussed if you're designing a study about the effects of alcohol. The reason is irrelevant. One can, for example, imagine a world where a culture of covert hidden drinking in specific Muslim countries gives the proposed benefits of moderate drinking to some of the population. A study that assumed no Muslims drank would thus be flawed because it would include a group that actually was drinking all along.
    - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
      > A study that assumed no Muslims drank would thus be flawed Well gee, I guess you're right. If only there were some sort of test to determine if a person had been drinking, and how much alcohol they'd had. Someone should get right on that.
      - rajamaka 3y ago
        What test that can determine someone has never drank alcohol?
graemep 3y ago
You cannot rely on all Muslims not having alcohol. Most Muslims I know (not an unbiased sample for multiple reasons!) do drink alcohol. Social pressure may mean people drink with friends but not in front of family or their community, or keep alcohol in their bedrooms and drink alone? Both certainly happen (no idea how much, probably varies wildly between communities). > in my city, there is NEVER DUI accidents. We just have never heard of them How often are drivers tested for alcohol? How good is prosecution and reporting? Can people bribe their way out if caught? > Neither do we have alcohol overdose or an alcohol epidemic that requires assistance of alcoholic anonymous and other groups. Again, you may the the problems but not the help because the existence of the problem is not publicly acknowledged. It is even worse of you try to compare on a national level. There might be smuggling and home brewing. Most importantly, any religion will cause multiple lifestyle changes. In the case of Islam some are obvious - not eating pork, Ramadan fasts, prayer times. Religious ideas change attitudes to sex, money and career, family life - pretty much your entire lifestyle. It is even worse on a national level. A lot of differences between the US and the UK can be traced to differences in the different branches of the same religion that was dominant. The most obvious is politics. In the 80s and 90s the largest Christian church in the UK was criticising the government for policies it regarded as not fair on the poor (welfare spending etc.) and most people belonging to the second largest voted for an outright socialist party. We do not even have a noticeable "religious right". Different from the US! More relevant to the topic at hand is the huge and obvious difference in attitudes to alcohol. Similar differences between historically Catholic and protestant countries in Europe.
- xorcist 3y ago
  There's a lot to say about how the right took over large parts of Christianity in the US. It seems to have been in the right backwater of the counterculture and very much on purpose. Before, Christians in the US were very much like Christians in the rest of the world. Taking care of the poor is a central tenet of Jesus' teachings.

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago

It may not be possible to separate out the effects of ethanol itself from the effects of the toxins and adulterants that are routinely added to alcoholic beverages at all stages. You see, alcoholic beverages are shielded from most all of the FDA's labeling requirements in these United States, and so if you pick up a bottle of beer, or wine or hard liquor, they don't really have to tell you anything about what's in it, other than the proof and the general category of booze where it fits in. Of course you have absinthe, which was notoriously adulterated with all sorts of horrible stuff and subsequently banned/regulated out of existence, but I feel like even Bud Light comes with its own profile of nasty crap, just like any other processed food you will eat. So-called "German Beer Purity Laws" can't really protect the drinker from consuming nasty adulterants alongside that sweet, sweet alcohol they need to cope with their miserable lives.

CalRobert 3y ago
What are you referring to? I made homebrew for a while and never needed adulterants, unless you mean finings or similar?
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  Of course you don't need them! That's the point, isn't it?
- icameron 3y ago
  Maybe because there are hundreds or thousands of compounds that can be produced during fermentation, higher alcohols, toxins, flavonoids, aminos, besides ethanol. It’s such a complicated biological process. Especially under home brewing conditions where many variables are not as closely controlled, sanitized, or monitored. Generally there are far more chemicals in fermented beverages, some toxic and carcinogenic to varying degrees. Many relatively harmless or even healthy too.
  - CalRobert 3y ago
    OK but something that arises during fermentation doesn't seem like it meets the description "adulterant". Maybe I'm being semantic.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ponderings 3y ago

I eventually almost forgot about the topic and was just amazed by the effort that went into making this this readable. Someone told me about a paper long ago. It compared 2 groups of heavy drinkers, one drinking mostly fancy wines with elaborate expensive meals and the other drinking mostly beer while eating out of a deep fryer. The banquet winos consumed more alcohol per day but had much better health. They also tested both diets on rats with the same result. I suppose the moral of the study was that nutrition has such a large effect on health that alcohol hardly makes a difference, even in large amounts.

adrianN 3y ago
Unless they compared both groups to a good control I don’t think you can conclude that.
- ponderings 3y ago
  It's more practical than a 100 m feel good study to justify drinking. People are going to drink regardless. If you do, eat well.

mpweiher 3y ago

Hmm…so it’s about explaining that “dip” for low doses. I thought that was explained a long time ago: when you have certain diseases, the first thing your doctor will do is tell you to stop drinking alcohol. So you get more sick people in the “no alcohol” group, despite alcohol being harmful at any dosage. Confirmed by the ADH1B study that TFA dismisses as “inconclusive” without any good reason that I could see, despite there being another study coming to the same conclusion. Not being satisfied with labeling two perfectly fine studies as “inconclusive” for no good reason, he then strengthens that to claim that the alcohol-harmful-at-any-dose hypothesis is plain “wrong”. Again without giving any reasons. Huh? Just a weird article.

pflenker 3y ago
Misunderstanding this fact that you described makes its rounds here in Germany every 2-5 years with media claiming that moderate drinking is good for your health because the mortality of the „no alcohol“ group is higher even though as you pointed out it includes more sick persons.
rpmisms 3y ago
Alternatively, alcohol in low doses is healthy. Humans have been drinking alcohol for most of recorded history, it stands to reason that we'd have developed some sort of tolerance/affinity for it.
- mpweiher 3y ago
  No, not really. I guess I didn't explain that once they figured out what the confounding variable was, they controlled for it and the dip disappeared. Given that, the ADH1B study and the other study mentioned in the article, the evidence is strong and completely one-sided. Having a tolerance just means harmful effects are less pronounced, not that there is a benefit.

taopai 3y ago

I just did MDMA 3 times in my life with controlled dose and environment. I don't recommend drug use. When I first tried it I just realized alcohol is not fun. In fact is a shitty drug. We think we are having a good time because everybody drinks, and that's what you do, and it's so tied to our social life. But If we hang out more, and didn't used like a social crutch we'll surely have the same or more fun. Lately I found that coffee make's me much more fun than some beers, I am very sensitive to coffee. I have a BLAST, and also people around me, while with +4 beers I laugh a little but I become kind of numbed, lazy funny, as I say. I hope this is not off topic. But when talking about alcohol I think that the problem is how it's seen socially.

bowsamic 3y ago
It really depends on the person. I’m like you to a degree (though it depends what I’m doing) but I know people who literally get energised the more alcohol they drink. Friends ordering a huge round of drinks at 4am just as the bar is closing, etc. I’ve also had times on alcohol which were pretty euphoric and not that far from MDMA. Also we have to consider what it does to sex, which is quite amazing. Alcohol is a delicate balancing act though. For example, if I’m in a good mood and we’re doing something reasonably active it’s amazing, but if I’m just drinking on the sofa I just become more lethargic.
mettamage 3y ago
Matcha is my favorite work drug. Caffeine is one of my favorite party drugs, especially a Club Mate (or 6, over the whole night from 11 PM to 7 AM in the morning) does the trick. The Wim Hof Method is also an amazing drug (adrenaline). It's all drugs. This just happens to be legal. Alcohol sucks. Weed isn't great. Truffles (wherever legal), meh, over it. n = 1, my experience Meditation does a lot to me. It doen't to others. Aka everyone is different. I don't recommend drugs either. If you do, make sure you do it at a decriminalized place at least. For me though, every decriminalized thing I've tried has been really helpful. One time I almost wanted to commit suicide (second psilocybin trip), so to say it's not for the faint of heart is a euphenistic understatement. Even that trip showed me I was in a very toxic relationship. To get a life scare was the right response, I'd have gone that way sober as well, what psilocybin did in a day would've taken years when sober (speaking from experience unfortunately). I have parents, who used to be both addicts. I didn't inherit their addiction, it seems. I do have their genes. It makes me hypothesize that genetic inheritability is less of a factor. I've not been raised by them and because of it my socio-economic-status is completely different. Though, if I look at social media, I'd argue that is my addiction. I think starting late (even with alcohol) and getting a university education really helps. It also helps my social circle is scared of any form of drugs (other than caffeine) and it's hard for me to find a good setting. I'm in favor of drug legalization over 30. Wim Hof, meditation, music, running, dancing, dreaming, lucid dreaming (dream journal!) and being sleep deprived Those are all good analogues for any form of drugs. I'm playing around with starting a startup over this and contributing the money towards comparative research between these states of consciousness versus actual drug states. Feel free to email if you're up for talking about that.

rimeice 3y ago

Brilliant summary. Still not sure why the NIAAA couldn’t fund this themselves though? Just from the name, it seems like the only trial they should be interested in. I don’t understand why NIAAA employees would go out and pitch this to industry, I can understand why industry might try and lobby their way in there when they got wind of it happening. Just seems like there’s something missing from the story there.

anjel 3y ago

Edge case: Actor Dick Van Dyke quit a heavy drinking habit in his mid 40s. He quit smoking cigarettes at 75. He's 98 this year. See also, George Burns. It must be the acting.