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

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

#251

Post by starwind »

bena wrote: post #244
muongold wrote: post #150

I saved this article from a similar discussion a few years ago, which argues that moderate drinking (but not binge drinking) is healthy in various ways. Does anyone know if it, or the underlying data it refers to, has been refuted? https://psmag.com/social-justice/truth-wont-admit-drinking-h...

This is a correlation fallacy. The group of moderate drinkers is also the group of the most healthy. That doesn't necessarily mean that moderate drinking is healthy. Because guess what else correlates with moderate drinking? Affluence. Guess where poor people fall more in either the "never or hardly" category or the "binge drinking" category. Either you feel like you're too poor to afford to drink and thus do so only…

Don't forget that studies looking at drinking often fail to seperate out former alcoholics who usually have long-term health problems from drinking from teetotalers

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

#252

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #180
kube-system wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most victimless crimes have victims, they’re just hard to singularly identify.

No. Not even close. Most victimless crimes have literally no victim. There is no victim without some sort of harm. The reason we have speed limits and drugs are illegal is because if you go overboard enough with them there is a high likelihood of harm. In the vast majority of cases people don't go overboard and there is no actual victim though. These things are crimes because our system of justice is not good at puni…

[deleted]

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

#253

Post by carnitine »

perardi wrote: post #210
caeril wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: alcohol is one of the best drugs on the planet for anyone on the spectrum of introversion to crippling social anxiety. In all my (many) years, I have found no better path to becoming socially acceptable (even likable) to neurotypicals/extroverts than 3-4 shots of vodka. This is an unfortunate, but very real fact for many of us. I've heard good things about Phenibut, but (1) it's very difficult to obtain…

Oh-ho, no, not in my experience. I used to be devastatingly introverted. Alcohol helped, but it’s nothing compared to GHB or MDMA. Ecstasy will give you the gift of gab like you can’t believe. minor edit: I should say I am ignoring the context of where it’s acceptable to do such things. You probably shouldn’t do G at Christmas with the in-laws. (Though our quarantine Christmas this year with friends…) I’m just making…

You can drink alcohol after work with colleagues though. It’s far more helpful socially than party drugs due to its ubiquity.

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

#254

Post by _-david-_ »

reverend_gonzo wrote: post #175
RobertRoberts wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slippery slope. What happens when a drug addict looking his next fix attacks someone? This is why we have drug laws to start with, was to protect people. There are no simple answers here.

Assault is already a crime. What happens when a person robs someone so he can buy a new car? You don’t outlaw cars.

Cars don't cause impaired judgment and withdraw.

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

#255

Post by penjelly »

endisneigh wrote: post #203
asdf_snar wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then at some point people, as adults, feel like they have to drink to enjoy themselves? I wonder what happened. It feels like this question is disingenuous. You don't need fire starter to start a fire either, but wouldn't it be silly to conclude fire starter doesn't make starting a fire easier? Moderate alcohol consumption in an intimate environment is a lot of fun. Put differently, if alcohol didn't present such s…

I don’t understand your comparison with a fire. Your claim that moderate alcohol consumption makes things more fun is part of the point of my post. Is this actually true, or just a rationalization of people who already drink? No judgement for those who do drink, by the way.

It is true. It allows some people open up in ways they wouldnt before. Your point could apply to psychedelics, are they necessary for personal growth and changing perspectives? No. Can they help & accelerate the process? Yes.

- anecdote from someone who doesnt like drinking much

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

#256

Post by JaimeThompson »

nradov wrote: post #172
sokoloff wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m generally pro-legalization, but there are many things that we hypothesize are safe but do not know the long-term effects of and, within living memory, have discovered that many things initially thought safe were not. People were taking X-ray images of shoe fit in department stores, we used thalidomide to treat morning sickness, etc. What society says is legal has an effect on how it is perceived and how frequentl…

That is faulty logic. We hypothesize that mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 are safe but do not know the long term effects. Why should we exercise conservatism for some drugs but not for vaccines? To be clear, I'm just using that as an example of logical inconsistency and I recommend that everyone eligible protect themselves by getting vaccinated. I also think that all recreational drugs should be legalized (or at least dec…

Scientifically speaking we know nothing at 100% confidence level.

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

#257

Post by mnw21cam »

kingkawn wrote: post #155
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.

Alcohol is legal because the population would tear the society down if it weren’t. That’s it. None of the other drugs have that kind of following.

Agreed. Banning it has been tried at least once, in the USA, and apparently it didn't work very well. There were too many people that wanted alcohol and were willing to defy government to have it. Government is at least partially (more in some countries than others) by consent of the governed.

But also on the contrary to your "none of the other drugs" point, I can't think of any possible reason why cigarettes weren't outright banned 40 years ago, except that they have exactly the same mechanism keeping them legal.

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

#258

Post by haroldp »

endisneigh wrote: post #42

Of course it isn’t. Drink water. Unfortunately some people believe they can’t enjoy themselves without alcohol. It’s curious: - babies have fun without drinking - kids have fun without drinking - some teens have fun without drinking Then at some point some people, as adults, feel like they have to drink to enjoy themselves? I wonder what happened. Edit: explicitly clarifying that I’m only talking about some people he…

"People with as yet undeveloped pre-frontal cortexes to limit their inhibitions, and analyze, second-guess and evaluate their actions before they take them, don't need a drug that specifically suppresses the executive functions of their PFC, so why do you?"

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

#259

Post by mc32 »

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.

There is such thing as a slippery slope and a dam that overruneth.

We’ve inherited use of alcohol over millennia —it’d be an uphill battle to rid ourselves of it short of fundamentalist dogmatism.

Some places in Central Asia have socialized opiate usage —but they too have unwritten rules about usage, or at least traditionally had them observed (it was a ‘luxury’ of old age).

If you allow an anything goes policy, you’ll end up with a decaying society. While I don’t propose prosecuting consumption because it’s the wrong focus, we should prosecute production and distribution of hard drugs.

Else you may end up with the likes of XIX century in China, or huffers in metro Manila.

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

#260

Post by CSSer »

sollewitt wrote: post #148
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.

Indeed, an NIH funded longitudinal study on alcohol kicked off in 2014 and it was shut down for being tainted by industry money: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/health/alcohol-nih-drinki... - you can't necessarily even trust publicly funded science when it impacts large industries.

It's at least encouraging that it was caught and shut down.
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