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Since this is the original paper I'll put my comment here. I used to follow the literature on this subject up to a few years ago, the key issue was that most of the studies had bad datasets. It's one of those things where it's impossible to run a randomized controlled trial. As an example of the issues you would often find in studies, if you dug into the comparison population of non-drinkers it included people that were non drinkers because of severe health issues, severely skewing the data. The few papers that did serious data-cleaning efforts were mostly unequivocal about alcohol just being bad no matter what.

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> The few papers that did serious data-cleaning efforts were mostly unequivocal about alcohol just being bad no matter what.

If you strictly look at it from a biological perspective isn't alcohol consumption pretty much short-term poisoning of your body to produce temporary good feelings? Is there any time where this would be good for the body and would have data to show it?

Sincerely wondering as that would be really interesting to read about. I have never really seen anything that implies it actually helps your body aside from the "drinking wine every once in a while is good for you".

Note: I also feel like this "unhealthy" argument can be true of anything. I.E. video games, sports, being exposed to people at a social event, etc. So I am not trying to argue that point. Just curious if there is any evidence suggesting alcohol may be good for your body -- from a biological perspective only.

> pretty much short-term poisoning

Do you even know what oxygen is? It's deadly to several life-forms

Exercise is short-term damage. Fever is "just a bit" of cooking you alive.

"Strictly from a biological experience" humans are the mammals that have the highest tolerance from alcohol (which evolved recently).

I guess I should have clarified that I was wondering from a human's biological perspective?

I don't quite understand why you are making these parallels to my question about any biological positives alcohol. Are you saying that alcohol is comparable to our need for controlled amounts of oxygen? Exercise clearly has some positive biological outcomes (stronger muscles, more resilient body systems, etc.). Does alcohol? And even with getting a fever you develop antibodies/tolerances (assuming you recover). Aside from tolerance to alcohol (which I am not sure why that would be useful) does alcohol provide any positive benefit to your body? I don't feel like any of the parallels you provided were useful to my question.

Again, I want to reiterate I was asking a question focusing on its benefits of the human body -- not trying to paint a narrative that alcohol is comprehensively bad. I really vibed with another comment that said alcohol can be a social stimulant and really can help people feel connected -- that's cool and I'm all about that.

But I want to reiterate my question: are there ever times when alcohol is actually good for your body?

> are there ever times when alcohol is actually good for your body?

The fact that we evolved tolerance to it probably means that there's at least a cost/benefit analysis there (see the sibling comment as well)

Off my head I'm not even sure how does alcohol tolerance compare with lactose tolerance (something with proven nutritional benefits), but I think it's a higher number

The reasons I heard about us developing alcohol tolerance was that it allowed our ancestors to eat ripe fruit that had fallen from the tree and begun fermenting, with the evolutionary advantages that

- they have higher calorie intake, especially if you can metabolize the alcohol into energy

- the alcohol kills pathogens that might have infected the fruit otherwise

- it probably also acted as a kind of mouthwash

- plus, in a hunter gatherer lifestyle where resources (including food and alcohol) are scarce, the possibility addiction is probably not at all as much of a problem

>"Strictly from a biological experience" humans are the mammals that have the highest tolerance from alcohol (which evolved recently).

it isn't just a tolerance. It is ability to use it as food, to metabolize it for energy. If i remember correctly our ape ancestors got it something like 8-10 million years ago. As i understand as a result they didn't necessarily had to climb the tree anymore for good fruit, the ones laying on the ground and already fermenting would do just fine (and even bring some pleasure :), and that possibly allowed to become more of a walking type than the tree climbing type.

Small amount of good alcohol, like a good wine, on the net seem to have positive effect. Yet those specific positive effects, like for example plague cleaning from the blood vessels, seem to not be of use to the people under 40, and thus net result for them is negative as even small amounts of alcohol do have some negative effects too.

Oh, that's a really cool perspective, I can understand how that would be useful!

Generally, I think the suggestion is that it might trigger a hormesis response: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis

This is an interesting link! If I understand it right, does the hormesis response in relation to alcohol mean that building tolerance to alcohol may improve one's tolerances to other toxins?

I think it's more that the repair mechanisms that are triggered by damage (from say, alcohol) tend to over-compensate. The net effect is that low level stress is necessary to keep the repair system maintaining everything properly. I'm not an expert though.

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