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Comment by capitainenemo | Hacker News Reader

Halfway through the article he brushes off hormetic effects. But it seems likely that a lot of things associated with health and longevity are probably hormetic.

Cold showers, hot baths, moderate exercise, low amounts of alcohol, intermittent fasting, low amounts of psychological stress... all have papers documenting beneficial effects with at least some speculating due to activating body's repair systems (hormesis).

Anyway, the idea that the beneficial effects of vegetables are due to plant defenses isn't an unusual idea - this was on the front page of HN a while back. https://nautil.us/fruits-and-vegetables-are-trying-to-kill-y...

Oh, and on the meat front, if you're into that, I'd suggest fish and birds, avoiding mammals due to the neu5gc autoimmune thing. Or at least, don't overdo it on the mammal.

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<<Anyway, the idea that the beneficial effects of vegetables are due to plant defenses isn't an unusual idea

The beneficial effects of plant-based diets (according to Sinclair, podcasts) is due to lower activation of mTor by plant protein vs. animal protein (also apart from various beneficial plant fibers, flavonols and polyphenols). Animal protein activates mTor most highly, and it is the inhibition of mTor (after main development) that correlates most robustly with healthspan.

To my best knowledge there is no benefit in low doses of alcohol.

The trick to make that visible was to exclude all those people who never drank any alcohol due to previous alcohol related health reason from the studies.

That increased health in the group of tee totaleres to such an extend that all seeming benefits of alcohol vanished.

It's hard to control for population effects for sure, but I don't think anyone has successfully done the control you stated. There are a ton of studies finding varying effects like improving "good" cholesterol, and reducing chance of coronary heart disease. But it's also been speculated to have hormetic effects, so just tossing it in there as a plausible. It wouldn't be surprising given how the vegetable thing might work.

Given alcohol crosses cultural and religious lines too, that also makes it harder to find unbiased analyses.

My personal rate of consumption is 125ml of red wine per day. That's just about in the sweet spot if there is one for beneficial effects. Also one of the better forms of alcohol for them. At any rate it's unlikely to do significant harm and is fun to consume. I'd like to note I have family members over 100 who drank red wine every day, and it might also be part of the "french paradox"

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