There's No 'Safe' Level of Alcohol Consumption, Global Study Finds
livescience.com
livescience.com
Yet Prof David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk at the University of Cambridge, sounded a note of caution about the findings.
"Given the pleasure presumably associated with moderate drinking, claiming there is no 'safe' level does not seem an argument for abstention," he said.
"There is no safe level of driving, but the government does not recommend that people avoid driving.
"Come to think of it, there is no safe level of living, but nobody would recommend abstention."
I think I have found my new motto :-)
Only mentioning it as it is being sold to the masses.
I read (here) that 10% of liquor stores' customers are half the volume. So the lesson probably applies mostly to those 10% who think "one drink a day" is a reasonable thing. The other 90% are risking very little, especially if they do their drinking at home.
Speak for yourself.
WTF? Work exists to support a fun life, not the other way around.
The same could be said for any leisure activity: I run, study & practise medieval swordsmanship and other history martial arts (and more modern sports wrestling). Other people play football (UK/Europe/...) or hand-egg (US) or other competitive sports, there is horse riding in various forms (all potentially quite dangerous without adequate experience working with the horses), and dancing (the effects of which may be additive with the risks of alcohol!), and many other activities, all of which have no safe amount if you want to 100% remove risk (unless by some complex statistical analysis you prove that the increase in risk for injury/death due to the activity at the participants current age/health is less than the decrease due to the potential health benefits of the activity).
Same with hand egg. People used to believe that the fitness and team-building aspects made playing the game beneficial. Now that we know about the certainty of brain injuries, the recommendation is to reduce playing time and prefer other team fitness activities.
Restaurants buy from liquor stores...
That 10% are drinking hugely more than one drink a day.
What effects would this policy have on social cohesion (or happiness) among adults? What would the downsides be?
EDIT: yes, obvious downsides are obvious. What I find interesting is the idea of the government providing a small mandate that then creates emergent social change, by virtue of everyone having to do it.
For example, the OP is about "no safe level of alcohol consumption" and recommends a policy change to decrease the recommendation. But what ends does this achieve? What sorts of government policies might encourage people to solve the problems that are making them unhappy? That's the kind of thing I'm trying to figure out.
When I'm on a strict diet I still enjoy the company of my friends when they're drunk and I'm sober. The only frustrating part is that soda water and diet soda kinda suck.
Come to think of it, when I was younger and worked some Saturday mornings I used to be sober at parties often.
Edit: typos
Edit: Based on comments in this thread, there are a lot of different perspectives on how comparable these two activities are. I still think there are many significantly "better" examples that could have been given.
Although that statement is true, until we find the Philosopher's Stone. If you do anything, you're going to die... eventually.
Perhaps all alcohol consumption is a burden on the body. But having a social life is a positive -- we keep seeing more reporting on the benefits of the latter.
So, where's the balance?
At the same time, I've seen a lot of pretty obviously unbalanced engagement with alcohol. And, it's remained largely segregated from many other drugs -- yes, calling it a drug -- in public perception and policy.
Maybe that will change, for the better.
> These implausible estimates of benefits or risks associated with diet probably reflect almost exclusively the magnitude of the cumulative biases in this type of research, with extensive residual confounding and selective reporting.3 Almost all nutritional variables are correlated with one another; thus, if one variable is causally related to health outcomes, many other variables will also yield significant associations in large enough data sets. With more research involving big data, almost all nutritional variables will be associated with almost all outcomes. Moreover, given the complicated associations of eating behaviors and patterns with many time-varying social and behavioral factors that also affect health, no currently available cohort includes sufficient information to address confounding in nutritional associations.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2698337?ut...
Someone will come out two weeks from now and say booze makes you immortal.
"Sometimes, beer loves us back too: Studies have suggested that, when consumed in moderation, beer has many health benefits." - http://www.foxnews.com/story/2010/01/15/healthy-beer-drinkin...
"Despite the health benefits of moderate drinking, Holahan emphasizes the need for common sense. One or two drinks a day may be beneficial for some, but drinking a lot more can be dangerous, he said." - https://news.utexas.edu/2010/08/27/psychology_drinking
One in Five Americans Say Moderate Drinking Is Healthy - https://news.gallup.com/poll/184382/one-five-americans-say-m...
So there is still people believing that alcohol may be healthy. It is good to understand that it is not. And that to decide to drink will have consequences.
I have seen an increase of availability of alcohol-free drinks for the past decade that allow you to hang out with your friends, keeping that very needed human contact, but allowing you to not suffer the adverse effects of alcohol and to drive safe home.
From the article:
What's more, any protective health effects of alcohol were offset by the drink's risk, including strong links between alcohol consumption and the risk of cancer and injuries such as those resulting from car accidents.
It depends, though. If your family has a high risk of cancer, but a low risk of diabetes or heart problems (or if you drink and drive), then alcohol will probably increase your risk.
However, if your family has a low risk of cancer, and a higher risk of heart disease, maybe you'd be better off drinking a little.
A major pet peeve of mine.
comparing no drinks with one drink a day the risk of developing one of the 23 alcohol-related health problems was 0.5% higher — meaning 914 in 100,000 15–95 year olds would develop a condition in one year if they did not drink, but 918 people in 100,000 who drank one alcoholic drink a day would develop an alcohol-related health problem in a year.
There's a good analysis at https://medium.com/wintoncentre/the-risks-of-alcohol-again-2...
One glass of wine a day might seem fine to some, and outrageous to others.
With the amount of literature being written about how many units a week is still considered "ok", I wouldn't mind getting a clearer understand of how much is too much.
TBC is still an infectious disease and road injuries are preventable by simply not driving after having had a drink and self-harm is rather unlikely after a bottle of beer.
> and the level of consumption that minimises health loss is zero.
That is a triviality. Alcohol has no health benefits.
---
Seems to me that it is okay to have a drink a day.
The statistics behind those studies are a bit dodgy, because they investigate just one disease (heart attacks, say) instead of total health effect, and because they are confounded by people who are tee-totalers because they were alcoholics (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/04/did-drinking-gi...). But many people say that they have a big negative impact on public health, because they allow people to rationalize their drinking---instead of thinking it's unhealthy they can go "oh, but it's good for my heart".
From that angle it is a triviality. Alcohol is mildly toxic to almost all organs - of course maximizing health will be achieved by avoiding it entirely.
I thought your line initially read "road injuries are preventable by simply not driving" full stop, I was on board with that.
What's one drink?
One 125 ml glass of wine at 8% ABV would be 1 UK unit.
One 175 ml glass of wine at 12% ABV would be 2 UK units, nearly double the alcohol. One of those a day and you're drinking at the UK safe limit levels of 14 units a week.
https://i.imgur.com/MhJm6Si.png
As an avid craft beer fan, I've been trying to keep my drinking under 120g of pure alcohol a week (which is about 9 standard drinks) by way of a Calca spreadsheet over the past two years. It's been very effective, but a bit annoying to wrangle manually. Figured I'd finally turn it into an actual product.
I think I'll probably release the code under GPL.
No doubt there is an increased risk of death, due to alcohol, through drunk-driving (either as perp or victim), street violence and so on.
But many of those problems stem from a small percentage of people, or the small percentage of occasions, when it is consumed in excess.
I think what people want to know are the direct health risks of alcohol, in various amounts.
The headline is misleading - it should say 'there is no safe level of alcohol for the good of society' or something similar.
And it is even wrong - if it was possible to limit how much anyone could consume in a day, many of the 'behavioral' risks would go away, and we'd be left with the health risks only.
Alcohol increases risks of many different types of cancer. We want to reduce the rates of cancer across a population, so we ask people to drink less.
But what's my particular risk of cancer from alcohol? We have no way of saying. And even if alcohol doubles my risk, if the risk was small to begin with does it matter that it's doubled?
It is a strong anxiolytic and is readily available 'over the counter' which means people can self-medicate themselves in times of crisis.
How many lives has that saved?
Most medical studies tell you significantly more about the prejudices of the authors and/or who paid for the study. This one seems no different in that regard.
I have an interest in the matter being an alcoholic myself.
A more interesting study would be on the degree of contempt we're held in by the medical profession at large.
RIP. Ian Murdock.
It's also a depressant and can make you feel worse. Some of the worst anxiety I've had is after a night of drinking. There's nothing like waking up in a pool of your own vomit after drinking alone and having every regrettable action before you blacked out come back to you from the night before. Thankfully I sleep on my side, but how many lives has that taken?
I cringe reading that as a child of parents who spent their lives self-medicating through drugs and alcohol rather than seeking outside help...
> How many lives has that saved?
I don’t know how many it’s saved, but I can tell you that it’s severely damaged and nearly ruined the lives of at least a handful of innocent bystanders.
We need to be able to differentiate between the two without conflating them.
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg115
Someone can be doing harm to themself well before they reach dependent-drinking levels.
> Harmful drinking is defined as a pattern of alcohol consumption causing health problems directly related to alcohol. This could include psychological problems such as depression, alcohol-related accidents or physical illness such as acute pancreatitis. In the longer term, harmful drinkers may go on to develop high blood pressure, cirrhosis, heart disease and some types of cancer, such as mouth, liver, bowel or breast cancer.
Alcohol-dependency is marked by
> craving, tolerance, a preoccupation with alcohol and continued drinking in spite of harmful consequences (for example, liver disease or depression caused by drinking). Alcohol dependence is also associated with increased criminal activity and domestic violence, and an increased rate of significant mental and physical disorders. Although alcohol dependence is defined in ICD-10 and DSM-IV in categorical terms for diagnostic and statistical purposes as being either present or absent, in reality dependence exists on a continuum of severity. However, it is helpful from a clinical perspective to subdivide dependence into categories of mild, moderate and severe. People with mild dependence (those scoring 15 or less on the Severity of Alcohol Dependence Questionnaire; SADQ) usually do not need assisted alcohol withdrawal. People with moderate dependence (with a SADQ score of between 15 and 30) usually need assisted alcohol withdrawal, which can typically be managed in a community setting unless there are other risks. People who are severely alcohol dependent (with a SADQ score of more than 30) will need assisted alcohol withdrawal, typically in an inpatient or residential setting. In this guideline these definitions of severity are used to guide selection of appropriate interventions.
I’m not saying they’re the same thing and that having a beer ruins lives. I certainly have a glass of wine from time to time and don’t feel it’s having an impact on anyone around me. But, at least to me, “self-medicating” implies far more consumption than just one drink.
(This is rhetorical)
I declared myself as an alcoholic in an effort to get outside help. It was a big mistake. I went from being the equivalent of a Jew in a ghetto to a Jew in a ghetto who had ever so helpfully just pinned a gold star on their chest in order to identify themselves more clearly to their persecutors.
One of the problems your parents had, is that in you they had a child who clearly chose to 'admonish' and just feel self-pity.
I don't blame you. My sister hated our alcoholic father and she still hates alcoholics. She's a Nurse Practitioner BTW.
If you cared about your parents, you would have looked into the why's and wherefore's of drug addiction and if you cared about anybody else you would have moved heaven and earth to make sure nobody else should have to go through what you did as a child.
To just say: Drugs are bad, mmmkay?
That's a stuck record and about as bad as it gets and just ensures drug abuse persists and the broken lives with it.
Which is basically what you and this study are promulgating.
If you recognise you are an alcoholic you ultimately have 3 choices:
1) Carry on as you are with the inevitable consequences of a slow unpleasant & painful death but also significant damage to those who love you: family & friends.
2) Own up to your addiction. See comments above. BTW, the medical profession will like you no more than the rest of society ie. Not at all. If you recover, it's going to be largely due to your own efforts & if you're lucky enough, supportive loved one(s).
3) Suicide. ASAP.
I think that's known as a classic Hobson's choice.
This is conjecture.
I have anxiety surrounding public speaking. Exercise helped with baseline anxiety, now I rarely feel like anxiety is a roadblock when I anticipate speaking.
Not true according to some studies. Exercise has been shown to have physiological benefits beyond addressing issues about how things look.
I'm no less self conscious about my body in terms of looks now I'm not fat compared to when I was nearly (perhaps actually) obese - I didn't care then and I don't care now, and where I have problems with people I've never thought it was my looks that put them off.
While I don't suffer from social anxiety specifically (I have it, but in "normal" amounts except where cause by the issue I'm about to mention) but I find the symptoms of bi-polar disorder less apparent (or more apparent less often) since improving my physical health and sometimes when they do rear their ugly heads "going for a run" or similar can help.
> Exercising won't solve ... anxiety due to stammering or have scar on your face.
I don't think the last poster was referring to anxiety resulting from such causes (though they were not clear on the matter).
> Exercising won't solve stage fright
If you specifically mean stage fright due to normally stressful situations (work presentations, actually being on a stage, ...) then no, though generally feeling better about yourself can help more generalised social anxiety.
He's not alone. Most medics do too.
The only way I managed to get off alcohol was by vigorous exercise: cycling many miles and hours in the Yorkshire Dales. That was in '98.
Before that, I found that any stress or anxiety would quickly result in me going back on the bottle.
My uncle was a general practitioner for many decades and he reflected later that at least 50% of his patients presenting with primarily a physical complaint, he'd find the actual pathology, if you did enough digging, was actually primarily psychological in nature.
Part of the problem with drinking alcohol is that the more you start to drink, you can start to realise you are getting into a spiral of decline.
You start to wake up in the mornings needing a drink in order to not feel ghastly and actually function at all. This starts to become a regular occurrence. You feel deeply ashamed that you can no longer control your drinking: it's controlling you. Because you feel ashamed, you then drink more so you no longer feel ashamed.
Welcome to the death spiral of alcohol addiction.
The only way of getting off that spiral is by admitting that you are an alcoholic. Not just to yourself but to your friends and family who may not even be aware that you are struggling.
You need to make it known to them because of the simple fact that you go to some family get together or other social occasion and it usually means alcohol is present (in the UK at least) and it's awkward when you're expected to be drinking and joining in with the festivities. If the folks around you know that you have an alcohol problem, then they wont try and encourage you to drink. If they don't know, then they can think you're some sort of killjoy etc.
Also, I declare myself an alcoholic on a forum like this as a form of public service. Anybody who suffers with an alcohol addiction is pretty much an expert on the matter. Even more so those few of us who are able to talk about it and possibly help others. You also find that you end up helping yourself by talking to others with similar experiences as it can occasionally cast a light on your own problems. It's essentially group therapy in action.
Most alcoholics can't do that, because they're pissed and many simply for the fact that they are lying in an early grave.
> How many lives has that saved?
Alcohol is strongly linked to death by suicide and to self-harm, so no, it's probably killed even more people.
Personally, I'll go with the fact that alcohol has been consumed for all of human history, the fact that many alcohol consuming cultures have longer life expectancy than some abstinent cultures (not proof in itself, but a 'good enough' observation for my own personal peace of mind), and the fact that I'd rather eat and drink well than gain what, an extra year or two of life? I'm healthy, not overweight, active, most of my ancestors in recent history lived to 90+ years old with sub-par diets and drinking habits, I'm not convinced ultra-healthy eating and abstinence is going to be worth the boredom.