No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation • Hacker News Board

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#221

Post by endisneigh » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

gwd wrote: post #207

lostgame wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Arbitrary rules are never a good thing. Any parent, ever - will be able to tell you this is a fact. If you think arbitrary rules can stick, wait until your kid hits the 'why'/'how come' phase. In this case, the government is the parent making an arbitrary rule and the people represent the 5-year-old kid asking why. Parent: 'You can drink, but you can't do cocaine.' Kid: 'Why?' Parent: 'Because cocaine is bad for y…

> Parent: 'You can drink, but you can't do cocaine.' > Kid: 'Why?' Parent: 'Because alcohol is legal and cocaine isn't; that has several consequences. 'Governmental regulations provide some confidence that alcohol is safe and as-advertised; there is no regulation of the manufacturing quality of cocaine. 'Buying alcohol brings you into close proximity to the liquor supply chain, all of whom can settle disputes by usin…

This isn’t actually a reason, though, as it begs the question. Cocaine could definitely be manufactured legally if made legal.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#222

Post by mnw21cam » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

cies wrote: post #86

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if we're going to tolerate this at large, we should probably consider legalizing everything else that's less harmful to at least be consistent. Please do not decide policy using this kind of reasoning. Maybe we should legalise more stuff, but “worse things are legal” is not a good reason. > A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. — Ralph Waldo…

Everything was legal until a law was passed criminalizing it. There's a difference between an offense and a crime (in most countries). Making buying/selling/using some substances a crime is limiting freedom, and hence should only be a measure of last resort. So no "the alc lobby push for laws against weed" kind of story that ended up with the "reefer scare" tactic.

> Everything was legal until a law was passed criminalizing it.

Many things are illegal not because a law has been passed against it, but because something seemed bad, was brought before a judge, and the judge made a judgment that set a precedent. That's what is called common law.

Having a law created is a separate way that things can become illegal. That's what is called statutory law.

Not all countries have common law.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#223

Post by the_only_law » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #164

shafyy wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smoking is for sure worse than alcohol consumption: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-by-risk-... Global yearly deaths by smoking: 7.1 million Global yearly deaths by alcohol usage: 2.84 million

The difference is that the average smoker dies at 80, and the average alcoholic dies at 35.

Source? 35 feels realllly young, but I guess it depends on what’s considered an “average” alcoholic. If someone is spending their entire day drinking string liquors everyday, I can maybe see that.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#224

Post by Swenrekcah » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

flippyhead wrote: post #82

I've heard this more lately and can't square it with what I had understood about those super long-lived cultures; like in Italy or Japan, where supposedly they drink moderate amounts of alcohol approximately daily.

Generally, doing things in moderation is way better than going to extremes. Drinking moderately as a culture may be correlated with eating moderately, exercising moderately, etc.

In any case it has always seemed clear to me that studies showing beneficial effects of moderate alcohol consumption are heavily influenced by some combination of paying interest-groups and the researchers really wanting to justify a daily beer/wine glass.

The clearest evidence for me that a glass a day can not possibly be healthy is the effect just a single glass has on athletic performance the next day.

For the record I do drink and have for a long time, but have no illusions about the negative effects.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#225

Post by colechristensen » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 4:14 PM UTC

Question one: what is the world heart federation? I have never heard of it before today.

Two:

> The evidence is clear: any level of alcohol consumption can lead to loss of healthy life.

The evidence is not clear. There are plenty of studies showing benefits. “Any level” “can” makes the statement technically true but meaningless, you could replace alcohol with anything and that would also be true. If you want to back up the statement, do a meta analysis study and publish that instead of pretending you’re the authority and giving vague statements.

This reads like somebody with a prejudged conclusion announcing that instead of actual scientific openmindedness. Plenty of people in the comments who already agreed are eating it up.

How could anybody who didn’t already agree with this be convinced, their argument boils down to “we say the studies conclude this” which is trivial to refute.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#226

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 4:14 PM UTC

mmastrac wrote: post #11

Alcohol is one of the worst "drugs" on a personal/societal harm scale - if we're going to tolerate this at large, we should probably consider legalizing everything else that's less harmful to at least be consistent. While we're at it, let's de-stigmatize the abuse of substances and treat it like a real mental health issue.

If alcohol in moderation is so bad then why is it taking so long to prove it?

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#227

Post by avgcorrection » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 4:14 PM UTC

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #18

mmastrac wrote: post #11

Alcohol is one of the worst "drugs" on a personal/societal harm scale - if we're going to tolerate this at large, we should probably consider legalizing everything else that's less harmful to at least be consistent. While we're at it, let's de-stigmatize the abuse of substances and treat it like a real mental health issue.

> if we're going to tolerate this at large, we should probably consider legalizing everything else that's less harmful to at least be consistent. Please do not decide policy using this kind of reasoning. Maybe we should legalise more stuff, but “worse things are legal” is not a good reason. > A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. — Ralph Waldo…

It’s not necessarily meant to be used as an argument as such. It could also be intended as a rhetorical device in order to force the opponent to concede on another point:

Person A: We should legalize weed in order to be consistent [see above argument]

Person B: Nonsense! Weed has harmful effects on society!

Person A: Alcohol objectively harms society more than weed [insert citations here]. So you would agree that we should regulate alcohol more, yes?

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#228

Post by kergonath » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 4:15 PM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #71

virgildotcodes wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the sake of consistency, wouldn’t it be desirable for the glorious leader to be subject to the same legal punishments as the masses?

That's his point.

Arguing about consistency in a system without the rule of law seems a bit foolish as well. Diplomats are a more interesting edge case. And AFAIK they can always be prosecuted and convicted in their home country.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#229

Post by qwytw » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 4:15 PM UTC

yuuu wrote: post #114

jdlyga wrote: post #22

Interesting how there's a major shift in the knowledge about risks of things like sugar, cigarettes, alcohol, etc. And it usually turns out there was an industry group involved in sort of a coverup. The lesson here is to take any health claims or dismissal or risks with a grain of salt when there's a big industry behind it.

I always scoffed at people who believed "a glass of wine every night is good for you." It seems pretty obvious that ingesting literal poison every day is not good for you.

Protein is a literal poison as well if you consume excessive amounts (above 35-40% of all caloric intake).

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#230

Post by tryptophan » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 4:15 PM UTC

parasubvert wrote: post #161

newaccount74 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite examples of this is how coconut oil is advertised all over youtube by thousands of influencers as a superfood that must be a part of a healthy diet. (Especially since it's hardly an oil in my opinion -- it's partially solid at room temperature) There's absolutely no reliable evidence that coconut oil has any beneficial effects on the human body, and I really don't see why anybody would believe that…

Because there is ample evidence that saturated fats are not bad for you, or at least no where near as bad as previous science led us to believe.

It would be more accurate to say that there is no strong evidence that saturated fats are bad for you.

Lots of the previous science was bad science that did not account for confounding factors, such as not taking into account that lots of fast food has lots of saturated fats(and made up for a large portion of saturated fat consumption) and adjusting for that. ie the difference between "do sat fats make people unhealthy" and "does eating fast food(which happens to have sat fats) make people unhealthy"

If you want to go down the rabbit hole, there is also no strong evidence showing cholesterol/eggs are bad, and neither is there any evidence showing salt is bad(if you are healthy). Lots of nutrition studies have such laughably silly methodology. Not sure why they were ever taken seriously.