U.S. drinking rate at new low as alcohol concerns surge | Hacker News Reader

U.S. drinking rate at new low as alcohol concerns surge

news.gallup.com

24 pointssfjailbird21 comments

This is an amazing thing, hope smoking remains low and betting in general gets under control as well. Then phones and social networks.

All else being equal, yes, less alcohol consumption is better. But I worry that this trend is related to the decline of in-person socializing in general.

> But I worry that this trend is related to the decline of in-person socializing in general

In my eyes, it is worrying that drinking and socializing are treated adjacent to each other, and that there is a notion that people cannot socialize without drinks involved.

This correlation tie-up makes it really difficult for people to quit drinking even if they want to, and for people to reluctantly take up drinking in an (IMO misguided) effort to find company.

And weed consumption is high.

Will increase as legalization and normalization; lounges, infused foods and beverages replace alcohol as an acceptable social lubricant. People were partaking clandestinely, COVID certainly accelerated the market.

Everyone is doing coke instead

“ recent research indicating that any level of alcohol consumption may negatively affect health”

Really now? Any amount? So you claim you can detect any negative effects in any capacity if I drank a single drop of alcohol 20 years ago?

Hard doubt.

They probably meant that even “light drinking” can have negative effects. Whatever that amount is..

Read it kindly, not literally. The missing word is probably “[persistent] consumption” and measurement in standard units of alcohol (not mmol or pl).

Sure, I indeed think they mean that. So, which amount actually does start to show negative effects? 1 drink per 10 years? Per year? Per month? Per week?

I’d prefer actual data and correct statements.

From the WHO [1]:

> Alcohol is a toxic, psychoactive, and dependence-producing substance and has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer decades ago – this is the highest risk group, which also includes asbestos, radiation and tobacco. Alcohol causes at least seven types of cancer, including the most common cancer types, such as bowel cancer and female breast cancer. Ethanol (alcohol) causes cancer through biological mechanisms as the compound breaks down in the body, which means that any beverage containing alcohol, regardless of its price and quality, poses a risk of developing cancer.

The risk of developing cancer increases substantially the more alcohol is consumed. However, latest available data indicate that half of all alcohol-attributable cancers in the WHO European Region are caused by “light” and “moderate” alcohol consumption – less than 1.5 litres of wine or less than 3.5 litres of beer or less than 450 millilitres of spirits per week. This drinking pattern is responsible for the majority of alcohol-attributable breast cancers in women, with the highest burden observed in countries of the European Union (EU). In the EU, cancer is the leading cause of death – with a steadily increasing incidence rate – and the majority of all alcohol-attributable deaths are due to different types of cancers.

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

I am very skeptical of this report, not because I think the numbers are wrong, but because their presentation seems as skewed as it can be.

4% of cancers are attributable to alcohol [1]. That's borderline negligible in the grand scheme of things. How do they manage to attribute half of that to light alcohol consumption? No clue. No quantification of the risk either, which is nowadays nearly always a reason to summarily discard the information, as alarmism reigns. Tidbits like "steadily increasing incidence rate", technically true but deliberately misleading in context as it's entirely expected since Europe keeps getting older, Eastern countries' life expectancies match the West's, road safety improves, people are more aware of nutrition, etc.

Taken together, this screams more of the "never do anything that might potentially maybe harm your health" approach to medicine than an actual solid case.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S147020452...

How many pixels can be defective on a display before you want to return it?

But extrapolation can fail.

Eg, people often say any amount of radiation is bad, but there’s evidence that isn’t true. If you’re going to make a similar claim about alcohol, you should justify it.

“Persistent consumption above some threshold” is a radically different claim than “any amount”; and you should quantify that in both respects.

Your rebuttal is to a claim that wasn’t made

The claim is a direct quote from the artcile..

The claim that "any amount may have negative effects" (in the article) is NOT the same as the claim that "you can detect if I had a single drop 20 years ago" (the claim you were arguing against.)

“May have”, sure. Everything “may have” negative effects.

I’m saying that in actuality, you won’t be able to see any damage if somebody drank a beer once, because there isn’t any.

> I’m saying that in actuality, you won’t be able to see any damage if somebody drank a beer once, because there isn’t any.

Which, again, is not a claim that was ever made in the article. You are literally making things up and arguing against your own made up arguments, and framing it as if the article originally made them. No where in the article does it say that.

It's also weird that you would have a such a vehement reaction towards the quote

> "recent research indicating that any level of alcohol consumption may negatively affect health"

to the point of making things up. How on earth is such a statement even at all remotely controversial?

From at least 2018, medical research says that the first drop starts to harm. In 2023, WHO adopted that position.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/alcohol-and-your-health-...

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

Then I hereby want to bet £1000,- for any physician which can test me and tell me how much alcohol I’ve drank the past 20 years, if they claim they can see the damage in any kind.

Read it like: "any amount of gambling may lose you money". The damage is proportional (and to some extent probabilistic) to the amount. As opposed to say: "any amount of horizontal speed may put you into orbit", which is not true ofc, there's a floor below which you will come right back down. Its a distinction between something which has non-zero levels that have no effect and something where the effect scales all the way from 0. It's a statement about populations obviously, diagnostics have finite precision etc etc, but it holds true as far as we know.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com