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

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421–430 of 1001 posts

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

#421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unhealt…

You raise several nutritional theories here. Dietary Cholesterol / Blood Cholesterol - cholesterol restriction has been removed from dietary guidelines in the US, so people have taken that seriously. Increased saturated fat is pretty well associated with LDL levels, which is associated with cardiovascular disease risk. Not sure that I've ever seen any contrary studies recently - I would be interested if you could lin…

Well for fats we have this:

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD...

There seems to be a moderate reduction in cardiovascular events, BUT - there is NO CHANGE in mortality or even cardiac mortality. Also note, these studies may be victim to the saturated-fats-are-fast-food issue.

If saturated fats were actually bad, like smoking is, I think we would see more significant results than "10-15% decrease in events that doesn't even change peoples' overall outcomes".

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

#422

Although 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 d…

See, I'm of the opinion that problem drinking and/or weed is escapism or a form of self-harm, and unless the underlying issues are solved you'd just find an alternative.

Anecdotal, but I drink less now that I'm in a comitted relationship / living together. I still drink, but it's social. I've only been sort of hung over once in the past year.

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

#423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To point 1. In the brief I find at the red download link [1] contains the line “ Based on recent evidence, it has been concluded that there is “no safe level of alcohol consumption”(5).” The reference points to an article from The Lancet [2] [1] https://world-heart-federation.org/wp-content/uploads/WHF-Po... [2] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

Another article from The Lancet from around the same time reported a whopping... 6 months of life expectancy reduction when consuming 100-200g of alcohol a week versus 0-100g of alcohol a week. [1, Figure 4] A drink is 14 grams of alcohol, so that means that your risk from consuming 150 grams, or over 10 drinks a week, is still relatively low in terms of all-cause mortality. Figure 1 also shows that consumption of 0-…

so Japanese people would live even longer than everyone else than they already do if they didn't drink so much

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

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What about meth, fentanyl or oxycotin? (to name just a few) I would consider these more literal poison by comparison to alcohol by any objective manner. If they are all legal, then access/addiction/intoxication are not even close to compare to alcohol, they are all far worse.

They're not poison though based on they way they work with neuroreceptors whereas alcohol limits neurotransmission all together. None of them are good, and in excess they're both terrible.

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

#425
I've completely cut my drinking down to "only on holidays where I'm expected to", and even then I don't get "drunk".

While I never got to a point of drinking where anyone would call it a "problem", I realized that any amount of alcohol probably isn't great for my depression, and I also realized that I actually didn't enjoy being drunk all that much.

I don't really miss it much, though it was a little difficult to quit cold turkey a few years ago when I did it.

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

#426
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.

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…

> I really don't see why anybody would believe that an oil high in saturated fats is good for you.

A lot of people do if you look around. Serious people I mean. They usually sing the praises of butter (and ghee), but the same reasoning is applied now to coconut oil.

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

#427

Although 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…

Weed isn't legal where I live however its easy enough to access. A thing i really dislike about weed is in my (and most of my friends) experience its possible to just accidentally get to high and have a panic attack or freak out.

While this is possible with drinking, I find its much more difficult especially when drinking beer as I do. It has to be a much more conscious decision for me to get wasted drunk than for me to accidentally get so stoned I hide in my room.

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

#428
post #229
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Here's an experiment: take two bugs. Pour alcohol on one and a protein shake on another. Which one do you think will be more biologically destructive?

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

#429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arrest them for assault...? Basically every study or reasonable implementation of decriminalization has shown both fewer negative effects of drug use, and in many cases decreased drug use itself. So there is in fact a simple answer, and I think you'll find that drug laws were likely conceived much more cynically than for the protection of the common person.

We have already (as a society) decided we will no longer forcibly help people, so what do you do with someone that hurts others to feed their addiction? Put them all in jail for every little offense? Fine them? (they have no money) Force them into rehab? (another form of jail) Let the roam the streets attacking people? (recycle through jail or rehab) No, it's not simple.

Assaulting people for drug money is an artifact of the drug war, not the drug. Alcohol addicts don't typically assault people for alcohol money. Alcohol gangs do not shoot each other up on the streets over alcohol territory. Or they haven't since 1933.

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

#430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting aside tradition/ritual, which I don't think should count for nothing, I can think of many objective metrics on which alcohol is superior: - Flavor - Fills the stomach (can be a disadvantage too, but is advantageous in some situations, e.g. while waiting for dinner to be served at a party) - Doesn't consume itself (i.e you can set down a drink and come back to it 30 minutes later) - Easy to consume a small amo…

There are lots of ways to consume weed that don’t have those drawbacks. There’s a dispensary around the block from me, and even though I don’t use it, I went in to look around to see what our new neighborhood shop looked like. They had a wide selection of edible candies, vape pens, and even drinks. It looks like it’d be very easy to get a consistent dose without burning anything. I know how much alcohol I can drink t…

Fair point, I was thinking of just smoking, and not other forms of consumption.
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