Hacker News Reader

Comment by reedf1 | Hacker News Reader

I think it's worth noting the context for this article - which a lot of people have missed. This study was performed when there was quite a lot of reporting on "one glass of red-wine a day", as being healthy and an important source of antioxidants. This is no longer believed to be true, but was (and is still) widely believed.

View on HN

And yet the study talks about "alcohol related illness like cancer or other injury" (which kind of injury btw? a car accident?) and admits "moderate drinking may protect against heart disease". I need a citation for the "heart protection vs other disease".

Hey, I'm 100% confident that heavy drinking is bad. But very moderate drinking (like, one glass of wine per day, when having dinner), for what I can see, seems to be correlated with moderate people that can limit themselves and yet it helps relaxing, de-stressing, having a chat. All those things are good for somebody's overall mood and health. Stress is bad.

Everything IMHO. I'm not an MD or an expert.

Alcohol is an addictive drug. Sure, if you have one drink a day it MIGHT relax you. But you also run the real risk of becoming an alcoholic and dying. Given that alcohol kills so many people, it doesn't seem worth the risk.

Life is risky.

Where I live almost everybody drinks, moderately. And yet very, very few people become an alcoholic.

>(which kind of injury btw? a car accident?)

Probably the most common non-cancerous injury from alcohol is cirrhosis of the liver.

Would you call that an "injury", and not a disease?

I'm not a medical researcher, so what exactly I would call it isn't too important. But you could describe the fibrosis which leads to cirrhosis as a direct "injury" from alcohol use.

The article says the following:

"The Global Burden of Disease study looked at levels of alcohol use and its health effects in 195 countries, including the UK', between 1990 and 2016."

I don't know of a global mindset when it comes to drinking alcohol/wine that ranged between 1990 and 2016?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com