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The Truth We Won't Admit: Drinking Is Healthy
- gdonelli 12y agoEverything in moderation is good my grandma used to say...
- mprny 12y agoSmoking? :)
- michaelbuddy 12y agoFor cigarettes, if you dial back what you consider moderation to say, maybe a cig or two socially every couple weeks, that would not likely be the thing that killed you. there are smokers like that, they just have a couple at a party, not very often. It's not something most people would do but there are some out there that do.
- seabrookmx 12y agoI'd say most cigar or pipe smokers I know are like this. I think it's less common with cigarettes now for various reasons. The social stigma, the fact that they are much more convenient, and that they deliver their nicotine "hit" much faster, I would imagine makes them more addictive.
- zyngo 12y agoSmoking significantly reduces risk of Parkinson's disease.
- csomar 12y agoWould you please link to the relevant study?
- jamestnz 12y agoHere is one, http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/155/8/732.full http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/155/8/732.full A reduced risk for Parkinson's disease (PD) among cigarette smokers has been observed consistently during the past 30 years. Recent evidence suggests that caffeine may also be protective. Findings are presented regarding associations of PD with smoking, caffeine intake, and alcohol consumption from a case-control study conducted in western Washington State in 1992–2000.
- Scoundreller 12y agoBeing a cigarette smoker was observed to reduce risk of PD. This study does not tell us if it's the smoking itself that's causing this, or some other trait of cigarette smokers because the studies weren't randomized.
- djeikyb 12y agoHere's something related: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10857708 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10857708 Definitely not "smoking", and not about preventing parkinson's. But it is one study that shows nicotine helps with some aspects of the disease.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- sethammons 12y agoEspecially moderation!
- lostcolony 12y agoEverything in Moderation; it's a hell of a town.
- hmsimha 12y agoWhat happens in Moderation doesn't necessarily stay in Moderation.
- baking 12y agoI'm sorry, but when you see the huge drop from "none" to "less than daily" in men you know there has to be something else going on there that only happens to be correlated with alcohol consumption.
- leephillips 12y agoWhy can't it be the alcohol?
- js2 12y agoI don't know a site that collects more research on the topic than http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol/AlcoholAndHealth.html http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol/AlcoholAndHealth.html
- chriskanan 12y agoThe evidence definitely seems to be converging on non-drinking as less healthy than light or moderate drinking. My question is, why does alcohol have these health benefits? Some earlier work pointed to resveratrol in wine, but there is a lot of doubt that's been cast on that hypothesis and the general benefits of alcohol seem to be agnostic regarding the particular form of beverage.
- Scoundreller 12y agoA whole pile of the studies are observational and not placebo-controlled, nor randomized. Therefore, other factors beyond the consumption itself can't be ruled out, such as differences in education, religious beliefs, non-religious beliefs, open-mindedness, etc. Trying to answer the question of why alcohol clinically has the effects that it does is a hard battle. The molecule has wide-ranging effects, it doesn't by any means hit any particular receptor. It goes wherever water goes in the body and disrupts every cell membrane in the body, among other effects. And that's if the health benefits have anything to do with the clinical effects at all.
- Scoundreller 12y agoI wanted to clarify that alcohol does hit many receptors, but not only one or two which would make studying it a lot easier.
- zach 12y agoIncluding this page which should make things clear: alcohol consumption is just a placeholder for socioeconomic status, which everyone knows has a major effect on longevity. http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol/Controversies/Drinking-Alcohol-and-Income-Education-and-Social-Class-or-Status.html http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol/Controversies/Drinking-Alcoh...
- _delirium 12y ago> If you don’t distinguish binge drinking from daily moderate drinking, that would be due to Americans’ addiction-phobia, which causes them to interpret any daily drinking as addictive. This is a quite common attitude in northern Europe as well, or at least in the Nordic countries. In Denmark it's highly suspicious to drink alcohol on a weekday (especially at lunch), unless it's a holiday, and will lead people to worry about alcoholism. But it's completely normal to have 6+ drinks on a weekend evening. Maybe even every weekend evening. You can binge-drink as much as you want, as long as it's only Fri-Sat (sometimes Thu). In fact it's even sort of expected; not doing so might raise suspicions that you're some kind of weird religious person (Mormon? Muslim?). Not sure how this arose, but it seems to be the cultural norm: 14 drinks/wk spread out as 1 each with lunch/dinner every day is seen as alcoholic, but the same 14 drinks/wk spread out as 7 each on Fri/Sat evenings is culturally normal. Whereas in southern Europe the opposite is more often true, at least traditionally, with weekend binge-drinking seen as more questionable than moderate daily drinking.
- Stronico 12y agoWell, daily drinking is a good predictor - 100% of practicing alcoholics drink every day after all.
- stefan_kendall3 12y agoThey're also 100% human, and they all tend to breathe at least twice a day.
- pdonis 12y agoThat's not what would make it a good predictor. The proper question is not what percentage of alcoholics drink every day, but what percentage of people who drink every day are alcoholics.
- Retric 12y agoPlenty of alcoholics don't drink every day. It's a question of compulsive and uncontrolled drinking not simply the frequency of drinking. A collage student may destroy their health and social life though binge drinking while not being able to afford drinking every day.
- jnbiche 12y agoWhat if a pharmaceutical company invented a pill that resulted in a modest but significant reduction in the risk of heart disease in 90% of the population, but resulted massive increase in the risk of premature mortality in 10% of the population, easily shaving off 10-40 years in life expectancy in that 10%, depending on the severity of their reaction to the drug. The company could find absolutely no way to tell the two populations apart prior to administering the pill. Most critically, once the 10% took the pill for a short period of time, they almost always ended up suffering the adverse effects. Do you think the FDA would approve that pill? Do you think any sane doctor would prescribe that pill to his/her patients? So absolutely, if you are sure you don't have any alcoholic tendencies (and if you have to ask, you aren't sure), then drink a glass or two of red wine a day (depending on your body mass). It will almost certainly improve your cardiovascular health. But don't expect medical or public health professionals to go singing its praises from the rooftops to a partially at-risk population.
- Tiksi 12y agoAnd yet opiates are both approved by the FDA, and widely prescribed by doctors. As far as I know they carry a much higher addiction risk and increase mortality quite a bit more than alcohol does. Benzos, amphetamines, SSRIs, etc etc. There are plenty of pills both approved and prescribed that have a worse effect and/or affect a higher percentage of people.
- jnbiche 12y agoOpiates, benzos, and amphetamines are all highly controlled substances -- and most physicians only prescribe them long-term under very rare circumstances. And actually, long-term opiate abuse is much less likely to result in organ failure and other chronic health conditions than alcohol is. That's not the case with benzos or amphetamines, but I don't see anyone this side of Hunter S. Thomson arguing that more people should take amphetamines. Finally, can you explain what you mean by "and/or affect a higher percentage of people"? You mean more people take SSRIs than abuse alcohol? I don't understand what you're suggesting.
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- grizzkill 12y agoWhat if the people in the 'none' group can't drink because of a medical condition? Many medical conditions are already associated with shortened life spans, and alcohol often interferes with medication.
- 3pt14159 12y agoThat was addressed in the article. They remove those people from the study!
- davvid 12y agoThe author has been funded in the past by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (a trade organization) and the Wine Institute. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanton_Peele#Funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanton_Peele#Funding This article makes it sound like there are no health concerns with regular drinking.
- towski 12y agoI would be more concerned with the mental health effects than the physical health effects anyway.
- clavalle 12y agoI would guess that you would find significant mental health benefits, as well.
- spacehome 12y agoI wouldn't guess. I would look at research.
- clavalle 12y agoOh? With what would you start your inquiry into the existing research? Would that be a guess, would you suppose? Or is it hard data all the way down? Even inquiries into research can contain bias. But your pithy attitude is noted.
- billbrown 12y agoOn the other hand, he's been writing on addiction for decades and that grant was from 14 years ago. Noted, but he's likely not a shill for Big Booze.
- durakot 12y ago"The more alcohol a society consumes, the fewer alcohol-related problems and alcohol-related deaths (including cirrhosis) it has." Heh, what? Exhibit A: Russia. I'm all for copious drinking, but that's comedy.
- readerrrr 12y agoYep, pure comedy. Here are the facts; alcohol is among the largest preventable causes of deaths, is connected to half of all violent crimes and about a third of car related deaths. http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impai...
- spikels 12y agoThe problem with those "connected" results is that alcohol is very popular so a large fraction of any group has consummed alcohol recently. This is yet another example of the divergence of causation and correlation. If it is actually responsible for preventable deaths, why are they not being prevented? Because they are probably very, very hard to actually prevent. Even prohibition did little to reduce death rates and we already arrest 1.5 million people in the US each year for driving under the influence. What would work? I suggest the prevention of these deaths will have little to do with alcohol and more to do with healthcare and perhaps automobile design.
- readerrrr 12y agoIf it is actually responsible for preventable deaths, why are they not being prevented? Because alcohol is the cause. I don't know what are you trying to say.
- spikels 12y agoSorry you don't understand - let me see if I can make it simpler for you. Your alias (readerrr) gives me some pause that this will be successful. :) If something is preventable that means it can be prevented. Right? So why is it not be prevented? Understand? By this flawed logic aren't all murders and suicides also preventable? This "preventable" label is bullshit. I suggest that the vast majority these "alcohol related deaths" cannot be prevented thought additional controls on alcohol. We tried prohibition - didn't help. We arrest 1.5 million people every year - still these death persist. Do you have some suggestions? I gave a few above.
- stretchwithme 12y agoGingivitis is associated with heart disease. Is it possible alcohol could just be killing bacteria enough to reduce the effect? Instead of taking up alcohol, consider hitting those gums with an electric toothbrush at least once a day.
- Scoundreller 12y agoAssociations don't imply causations. We don't know if gingivitis causes heart disease, nor do we know if heart disease causes gingivitis. Or maybe each has a minimal direct effect on the other (I'd never say none at all). Likely, individuals that have/do things that prevent gingivitis, like affording a dentist, also have/do things that prevent heart disease, like affording blood pressure medications.
- vixin 12y ago'Is it possible alcohol could just be killing bacteria enough to reduce the effect?' Answer: 'yes it is possible'. The strawman of 'association and causation' is introduced by you. Congratulations on knocking it down!
- a8da6b0c91d 12y agoRat experiments show that adding a small amount of alcohol to their drinking water makes them live longer. The reason is thought to be the alcohol helps kill off undesirable gut bacteria, which produce LPS endotoxins. Rats on antibiotics also live longer for the same reason. I don't think gingivitis is caused by bacteria per se. Cavities and gingivitis manifest as a consequence of lousy overall health and problems such as mineral deficiencies, not a lack of listerine. The phrase "look a gift horse in the mouth" exists because lousy teeth indicate a bunch of other health problems. It's not about horse oral hygiene.
- trentmb 12y agoDid it negatively impact their digestion at all (killing the useful gut flora)? Did they have chronic 'beer shits?'
- spacehome 12y ago> In fact, the evidence that abstinence from alcohol is a cause of heart disease and early death is irrefutable I'm sorry, but the author drastically overstates the certainty of our current knowledge. Every single piece of evidence he marshals is a study, not an experiment, so who knows what the confounding factors are. And even worse, the studies necessarily depend on self-reported alcohol consumption, which, as any doctor knows, is basically just a bunch of lies. There's a huge history of scientific consensuses being wrong, particularly surrounding health in the last 30 years. I think we should be cautious about jumping to conclusions of what these studies actually mean. That he calls his hypothesis "irrefutable" is downright appalling.
- aaron695 12y agoAs far as I'm concerned, this thread should be about the fact the government and health care professionals are lying to us about the facts because they think they know best. Whether the advice is best for society or not doesn't matter, they are lying to you. This concerns me a lot.
- dang 12y agohttps://hn.algolia.com/?q=drinking+is+healthy#!/story/forever/0/drinking%20is%20healthy https://hn.algolia.com/?q=drinking+is+healthy#!/story/foreve...
- m0skit0 12y agoI call bullshit. There's nothing in the while article that proves drinking is healthy. The author heavily relies on the wrong logic of "correlation means causality".