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

#541

Post by nradov » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 6:14 PM UTC

Zababa wrote: post #482

f38zf5vdt wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-…

For comparaison, smoking is ~10 years of life expectancy reduction https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal... . Surprisingly obesity seems to only replace some of your last years with years with diabetes, without decreasing your longevity https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC4951120/ . I think I didn't read that study correctly, or didn't find a good one. Air pollution might be aroun…

Severe obesity significantly decreases longevity.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/195748

That effect has been magnified by the current COVID-19 pandemic. Obesity directly causes more severe symptoms in infected patients.

https://www.wfae.org/health/2021-09-30/novant-says-9-of-10-c...

https://cardiologyres.org/index.php/Cardiologyres/article/vi...

https://reason.com/2022/01/03/cdc-covid-19-children-hospital...

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

#542

Post by pknight » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 6:14 PM UTC

Swenrekcah wrote: post #332

colechristensen wrote: post #225

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…

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,…

Alcohol consumption was pretty common in the NBA, with some even drinking during halftime. Some of the biggest stars of the league in the past decades drank a lot of alcohol, though much less now with more stringent policies in place. There are players that led the league in scoring despite drinking well into the night all the time. Lebron James is a famous wine drinker. He drinks every day and his longetivity and conditioning is unmatched, but he may be from a different planet.

These were some random facts from an NBA fan who doesn't drink.

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

#543

Post by JodieBenitez » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 6:15 PM UTC

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #357

jdhn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because alcohol has been purposely drunk by people for literally thousands of years, and the vast, vast majority of people are able to drink without having a problem?

people have purposely been doing a lot of slavery for thousands of years as well. took us some time but we got over the whole "its been fine for millions of years so it must be good or at least fine" to get to the root of the issue. once we found that, slavery was abolished pretty much everywhere. my point is, why bring "societal pressure of 500 years" into an argument for an inherently bad thing. just thinking out l…

I don't know what the slavery has to do here... but as for psychoactive drugs, it's not only a bad thing, it also has its upsides that are well-known, hence why humans have been consuming drugs since forever. The downsides/upsides ratio varies greatly depending on the dose and the frequency.

I think there's better education around alcohol now than there was 30 years ago (at least where I live). Still, a lot could be done, particularly for the youth, like banning pre-mixed cans and other sugary ready-to-binge beverages. Habits start early.

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

#544

Post by Zababa » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 6:15 PM UTC

nouveaux wrote: post #529

Zababa wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For comparaison, smoking is ~10 years of life expectancy reduction https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal... . Surprisingly obesity seems to only replace some of your last years with years with diabetes, without decreasing your longevity https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC4951120/ . I think I didn't read that study correctly, or didn't find a good one. Air pollution might be aroun…

"Nevertheless, men with obesity aged 55 y and older lived 2.8 (95% CI −6.1 to −0.1) fewer y without diabetes than normal weight individuals, whereas, for women, the difference between obese and normal weight counterparts was 4.7 (95% CI −9.0 to −0.6) y. Men and women with obesity lived 2.8 (95% CI 0.6 to 6.2) and 5.3 (95% CI 1.6 to 9.3) y longer with diabetes, respectively, compared to their normal weight counterpart…

My (uninformed) guess would be that people with diabetes are followed more closely than people without. Your point about healthier lifestyle is a good one too.

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

#545

Post by cies » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 6:16 PM UTC

mnw21cam wrote: post #222

cies wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>but because something seemed bad, was brought before a judge, and the judge made a judgment that set a precedent

Like growing MJ in yr garden?, gimme a break.

Hoe can substance use ever become a crime under common law? Some penalty okay, but a crime???

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

#546

Post by Zababa » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 6:16 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #541

Zababa wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For comparaison, smoking is ~10 years of life expectancy reduction https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal... . Surprisingly obesity seems to only replace some of your last years with years with diabetes, without decreasing your longevity https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC4951120/ . I think I didn't read that study correctly, or didn't find a good one. Air pollution might be aroun…

Severe obesity significantly decreases longevity. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/195748 That effect has been magnified by the current COVID-19 pandemic. Obesity directly causes more severe symptoms in infected patients. https://www.wfae.org/health/2021-09-30/novant-says-9-of-10-c... https://cardiologyres.org/index.php/Cardiologyres/article/vi... https://reason.com/2022/01/03/cdc-covid-19-children-h…

So severe obesity would be indeed "almost as bad as smoking" according to your article, which is more in line with what I've heard before. Thanks for the sources.

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

#547

Post by merpnderp » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 6:16 PM UTC

shawnz wrote: post #399

merpnderp wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The argument you are making here is not that drugs should be legalized for consistency's sake . The argument you are making is that drugs should be legalized because the dangers of prohibition outweigh the benefits. That is a completely different line of reasoning

If our threshold for badness is X and we apply that to alcohol, but don't apply that to drugs, then we're being inconsistent with how we apply our threshold for badness. You just had to take your argument a step further to see the consistency argument.

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

#548

Post by deltaonefour » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 6:18 PM UTC

clpm4j wrote: post #519

f38zf5vdt wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-…

Queue the Winston Churchill quote "I've taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me". I believe he died at age 91. Although it seems crazy that we could have ever believed alcohol is healthy in any way.

Anecdotal accounts could be one offs. We need data for a full picture and even than the data could be biased.

It may very well be Churchill could have survived longer were it not for alcohol.

This recent post seems to imply that they now have more accurate and more unbiased data leading them to this new conclusion. I think a lot of people at the WHF drink some amount of alcohol as do most people in the world. However, despite this, their conclusions and announcements must be based off data which is exactly the right thing to do and exactly what they are doing here.

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

#549

Post by 999900000999 » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 6:18 PM UTC

ahtihn wrote: post #537

999900000999 wrote: post #123

Earlier 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.

Meh decriminalize possession and consumption, sure. I don't think something like heroin should be easily available though.

You can either tax, regulate and make it safe.

Or have addicts die in the street.

Prohibition doesn't work.

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

#550

Post by InitialLastName » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 6:19 PM UTC

caeril wrote: post #162

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.

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…

> it is also apparently habit-forming.

I hear that vodka shots also have this property.