reminds me of when the WHO said fertile aged women should not drink any alcohol and the wine aunts had a meltdown while also citing WHO as a source for anything covid related. hypocrisy at its finest.
No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation
361–370 of 1001 posts
Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn’t actually a reason, though, as it begs the question. Cocaine could definitely be manufactured legally if made legal.
How does it beg the question?
Not GP, but a lot of people have trouble distinguishing "illegal" from "wrong", and the cause and effect. It's "wrong" to take cocaine because it's illegal; it's bad to legalize cocaine because it's "wrong". Cocaine is bad because of all the harms it causes to society; but a lot of the harms it causes to society (some of them listed above) come about solely because it's illegal.
Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation
#363Yes but a moderate amount with good friends is great for my soul.
I usually spend time with friends over coffee which has very much been rehabilitated in the medical world over the past ten years.
Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation
#364Earlier 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…
This kind of reasoning is perfect. You remember when alcohol was made illegal in the US? Remember the harm that caused from gangs, uneven police crackdowns on illegal bars, and such rampant criminality that alcohol was quickly re-legalized? The drug war is 100x worse. If we'd been consistent, we'd have dodged 50 years of a brutal drug war that has done so much damage to society, the rule of law, our democratic instit…
Countering an Emerson quote with a Frost quote. Well done.
Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation
#365I am fine with abstinence as a general recommendation, but critical thinking pointed out two issues with the WHF Policy Brief, which I suppose I have read in sufficient depth: 1. There is no citation on the sentence, "Recent evidence has found that no level of alcohol consumption is safe for health." This is really the only line we are interested in. 2. There is no comparison on the effects of alcohol on the body by…
As I recall, for this particular bit of research that I read a couple of months ago, more precisely it states there is no clear discernible level of consumption that could be deemed "safe". That's not really a surprise if you look at the data because it's such a mess. You also can't pin a point at which consumption is a high risk. What does that tell us? You can however surmise that low / moderate consumption is not…
> […] So what? That doesn't mean it's significant.
It is the question, how significant it is. Then there is the question, what level of significance will make a person reconsider their consumption.
However, the statement that no amount is truly safe, if it is correct, means, that in general alcohol is an unnecessary risk. There is no need to drink it and no good for ones heart comes of it in terms of biology. What society does with this info is up to all of us.
Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
Suppose the law states that David Haroldson (or the Glorious Leader, or foreign diplomats) cannot be convicted of any crime. That's inconsistent, (perhaps) arbitrary, and unfair. Yet, it would be foolish to extend this conviction-immunity to everybody.
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 can be abused as well. Just frame the leader for a crime and he sits in prison until it is proved that he is innocent, then do so again for a different crime.
For the above assume the leader is actually glorious, though of course most leaders who are called glorious are awful (IMHO)
Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation
#367Question 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…
Let me offer some food for thought: How many athletes report drinking a bit before competing? The answer is none because it negatively affects all physical ability. So would you say it’s likely that in aggregate drinking would be healthy? Edit: Wow, I guess people really don't like to think about this. To respond to both comments below, yes sure, sometimes it helps to relax just a bit and alcohol can help with that,…
Refuting your “none”
https://whyy.org/segments/when-a-bit-of-booze-is-just-the-bo...
Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can guarantee you the most dangerous part of using any substance is our legal system. Legalize everything for anyone 21 or older, and while we're at it, raise the enlistment age to 21. If you're old enough to die for this country, you should be old enough to light a j in it.
And raise the voting age to 21 too?
Voting age should be low. Maybe 8? 0 is good to
I'm not kidding. Talk to any 8 year old and they're much more level headed compared to those 10x their age. But the current system is set up to crush them relying only on the good will of seniors to protect their future.
This isn't a new idea btw https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/16/reconstruct...
Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation
#369Alcohol 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.
I would consider it the worst or most powerful drug in terms of access, addiction and intoxication. It's literally poison, and what it can do to an individual I feel is unlike most other illicit substances.
Or glue sniffing?
Alcohol is only a problem because some people do it so much. Alot of people I know drink all the time-- like several times a week. They could look a little younger but generally have passable bills of health.
Also we have to question who's behind this statement. For all we know it's the PRC starting a new teetotalling campaign in their land.
Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation
#370Although I live in a place where weed is legal, I don’t use it. I enjoy the occasional glass of a nice scotch, though, and I love a good stout or porter beer. This is where it gets a little strange for me: by every metric I can think of, I’d be better off replacing alcohol with weed. There seem to be fewer negative effects, it’s not a source of empty calories, and looks like a better recreational drug in every way. A…
Well, media has been recently overwhelmed by studies showcasing the benefits of weed so that the disadvantages of using it appear to be lower or none at all, but that's not really the case.
If smoked, you're smoking tar and volatile compounds that can harm the lungs, much like a regular cigarette - although you're probably not going to smoke a pack of 20 joints in a single day like the moderate-to-heavy smoker next door do.
There's also an association between weed and schizophrenia (and depression) in adults. I'm not going to say "weed causes schizophrenia" (or depression), but the correlation exists and some will argue it implies causation here. Weed is also associated with some memory problems in adults too, although they seem to wean off if you stop using it.
There are cardiovascular risks associated with THC too, since it can cause abnormal heart rhythms and elevated heart rate. And, again, it's even worse if smoked since carbon dioxide and smoke compounds are known for affecting the heart.
So, yeah, weed has benefits, plenty of them, but I wouldn't say it's necessarily "safer". Don't get me wrong, alcohol is toxic, it's broken down in the liver into Acetaldehyde, a known carcinogenic. This stuff can't be healthy. But, for weed, we have less data on how it impacts the body - see how much time did it take to scientists finally admit alcohol is toxic? -. Similar studies on cannabis are still ongoing and we don't know yet all the risks it poses, but we already can see they do exist.
Maybe the real healthy thing is not switching from one drug to another, but cutting back on the overall consumption.