No Amount of Alcohol Use Is Safe, Analysis of Studies Finds
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
I also personally don’t like it that, anytime someone demonstrates they have an a very functional understanding of drinking and their intake and can control its many facets through a multitude of different means indicating that they are in no way under some spell of blind addiction, people are still so quick and judgemental to assume they have a problem, a disease, an addition that they aren’t handling and should get help from a group of people who really don’t know what they are doing with regard to the psychology of addiction.
Something no one will ever tell you is, most people go through a period of heavy drinking at some point in their lives and will miraculously let up on consumption all on their own without the help of a 12 step group.
AA worked for me, but only at the point that I wanted to change. Most of the people I see coming in day after day-- they're court ordered--they don't want to be there, they don't think they have a problem, so I would have no trouble believing that 13%.
A slightly better summary can be found at [2] which explains the differences better (i.e. moderate drinking lowers risk of dementia and heard disease, but increases the chance of e.g. accidents)
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/03/alcoho...
My general perception is that maybe small amounts of alcohol aren’t necessarily good for you (which was previously thought) and may just be neutral. Moderate drinking certainly doesn’t seem as significant for morbidity/mortality as smoking or obesity from the current evidence.
Plus at the end of the day, everything carries risk. It is about deciding what is worth a slight risk. I don’t get the focus on demonising small amounts of alcohol. Even if it increases risk slightly, it provides joy to many people and encourages socialisation- important to improving both quality of life and health. There are much bigger fish to fry than moderate alcohol consumption.
We know those advantages don't happen for anyone else.
The evidence is unclear to the general public because a multi-million dollar industry (especially in the UK) keeps pushing inaccurate information to print media who suck at science and health reporting.
> There are much bigger fish to fry than moderate alcohol consumption.
When we ask people how much they drink they all say "not much", and then when we check what they actually drink it's often far more.
Here's a guy who thought he was drinking moderately when he was drinking far more than the recommended maximum.
In the past I've used Cysteine and Thiamine supplements for effective hangover prevention [1]. But after learning the same acetaldehyde largely responsible for the hangover effects is carcinogenic. Having had experienced firsthand the effectiveness of Cysteine targeting the acetaldehyde in my head, it became very clear consuming this poison, ethanol, should be avoided in general.
[0] https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/04/did-drinking-gi...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cysteine#Reducing_toxic_effect...
Tuberculosis? That's interesting.
Tuberculosis is more common in Eastern Europe. Poor, homeless or incarcerated people often get it. Those segments are more likely to abuse alcohol. Not sure on the direct causation part. It weakens the immune system perhaps.
The only reason people are unsure about this is the multi-million dollar industry spending huge amounts on bad science and press releases.
Vices are excused when wealthy educated people partake in them and government profits.
It isn't just harm to one's own health...alcohol consumption and addiction imposes a massive cost on society...much worse than firearms...but you rarely hear politicians discuss "sane alcohol control"
Where "some people" only includes women over 50, and "moderate drinking" means "three or four drinks per week" - far less than most people think of as moderate drinking, especially in the UK where 2 large glasses of wine a day is seen as normal.
I really think others would probably benefit as well.
Your small glass of beer most days isn't doing much to you, but across the population it means you have thousands of extra accidents.
Even the slight effects start at 2 glasses.
This kind of statement is as useful as the ‘all products are known to the state of California to cause cancer’ stickers.