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Comment by satvikpendem | Hacker News Reader

"No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health" [0]. Always interesting to see the responses of people to this scientific fact.

[0] https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-...

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It probably gets negative responses because people are tired of seeing it posted any time alcohol is mentioned. It's becoming like people saying they're vegan or they do crossfit any time food or exercise is mentioned.

Alcohol isn't good for me, but I simply don't care.

pwnd

Perhaps the responses are less to the fact and more to the smug moralizing manner in which certain people point this out.

Nothing is moralizing about it, it's a neutral fact, but people just don't like it being pointed out to them. By all means, drink if you want, but many people seem to think it confers some health benefit which has been debunked, that's all that this article is talking about.

There may have been a time when informed, intelligent people thought that alcohol had health benefits - but that time was many years ago now.

All of the claims about health benefits that I've seen were about other (families of) chemicals, rather than the ethanol itself.

Wrong.

Latest research says it cuts heart disease risk and increases other risks.

> To identify a “safe” level of alcohol consumption, valid scientific evidence would need to demonstrate that at and below a certain level, there is no risk of illness or injury associated with alcohol consumption. The new WHO statement clarifies: currently available evidence cannot indicate the existence of a threshold at which the carcinogenic effects of alcohol “switch on” and start to manifest in the human body.

This does not say that it is known to be unsafe.

This says that there is not sufficient data to know that it is safe.

These are very different things, and presenting the later as is it was the former ~~is dishonest~~ showcases the poor level of statistical literacy that even most otherwise knowledgeable people have.

Which is nonsense, if I drink a glass once a year absolutely nothing bad whatsoever will happen.

Even oxygen is worse - for one the withdrawal symptoms are much more severe

This is simply not true and is probably some Huberman conspiracy or something...

Any poison has hormetic effect. Claiming otherwise is irresponsible and incompetent.

Yes, Andrew Huberman infiltrated the World Health Organisation and convinced them to lie about safe levels of alcohol consumption.

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