Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

811–820 of 1001 posts

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

#811

Post by idontwantthis »

afcapel wrote: post #789
idontwantthis wrote: post #778

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Secondhand smoke is the cost of being in a bar outside of the US. Good luck making friends with European expats without some secondhand smoke.

In general European countries have bans on smoking in public places much stricter than the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smoking_bans#Smoking_b...

I wasn’t aware of Europe’s laws but I meant outside of Europe too with European expats. Living in Asia currently and second hand smoke is a big part of my social life.

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

#812

Post by ianlevesque »

nitrogen wrote: post #774
wolverine876 wrote: post #761

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but not high on the list of priorities. How about enabling people to get healthcare, go to college, or to survive by addressing global warming.

"Stop everything above this line on Maslow's pyramid because some people fall below the line" is not a solution to any of the problems faces by people below the line. It's like demanding that an astrophysicist cure AIDS at once before ever using another telescope. You don't help people climb a ladder by chopping off the top and declaring the ladder climbed.

> You don't help people climb a ladder by chopping off the top and declaring the ladder climbed.

Sounds like public schooling in the USA for the last 25 years :(

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

#813

Post by dionidium »

dahart wrote: post #808
dionidium wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to feel some dissonance about this, you might note that this is the exact language the CDC uses for things like secondhand smoke -- "There is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke" -- which everybody nods along to and accepts without much scrutiny. Source: https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/seco... Meanwhile, when it's something like, say, cosmic radiation exposure from c…

There is no dissonance here, this is FUD. The language is wildly different because the actual risks are wildly different. One kills a lot of people and the other doesn’t. How many people are actually dying from air travel radiation? The numbers are low enough that they’re hard to find evidence for. Here’s a study, for example, that attempted to answer the question for pilots, who obviously fly frequently. They weren’…

First of all, this is a good and fair pushback.

But I’d respond that I chose secondhand smoke for a reason. I similarly doubt there’s any measurable impact of being around a smoker every once in a while, but the language around secondhand smoke got more and more hysterical leading up to the widespread implementation of smoking bans, to the point that it’s not uncommon today to hear people complain that walking near a smoker on a sidewalk outside is a risk to their health.

That’s basically absurd.

But the “no safe level of exposure” language has been used to justify such claims.

Finally, to be clear, even if you think this language is good and useful, there’s still utility in thinking about why that’s true, especially if hearing similar language about alcohol bothers you for some reason.

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

#814

Post by andbberger »

azth wrote: post #787
zarzavat wrote: post #763

My favourite quote on the matter: But claiming there is no ‘safe’ level does not seem an argument for abstention. There is no safe level of driving, but government do not recommend that people avoid driving. Come to think of it, there is no safe level of living, but nobody would recommend abstention. https://medium.com/wintoncentre/the-risks-of-alcohol-again-2... I understand why they want to dispel the persistent my…

> But claiming there is no ‘safe’ level does not seem an argument for abstention. There is no safe level of driving, but government do not recommend that people avoid driving. False equivalence. Drinking is not necessary for life (and it's harmful as we see here), but driving is required for many people's livelihood.

It's not unreasonable to equate the two. The necessity of driving in western cities is very much a design choice that could reasonably be considered to be a public health crisis. It's not an inherent property of the world.

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

#815

Post by andbberger »

pydry wrote: post #592
leonidasv wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The schizophrenia and memory loss part seems to be for very heavy usage. AFAIK infrequent use of edibles has no down sides.

nope there are still the cardiovascular risks

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

#816

Post by loceng »

volkl48 wrote: post #665
loceng wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish we'd stop using shallow metrics life longevity over quality - it causes the layperson (who hasn't developed their critical thinking enough yet, or perhaps not capable to) to skim over that "lifespan" doesn't take into account all kinds of qualitative variables - including alcohol being a depressant, literally you're depressing how sharp your nervous system can be; yes, which people often self-medicate with bec…

Maybe you have a different point in mind, but I am skeptical that there are any consumers of alcohol that are not aware that it is partially a depressant. This is both obvious to any consumer of it, and taught in every school that does any sort of substance (ab)use education.

Do you know if they teach that it causes cancer too?

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

#817

Post by shadowofneptune »

ummonk wrote: post #785
shadowofneptune wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the studies have found is that drinking in moderation (at or below the 1–2 standard drinks a day limit) does not have cause a very large impact on life expectancy. This raises sharply after exceeding the limit. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/sorting-out-the-health-e... Personally unsure whether a reduced year or two of life is really that significant.

That article seems to back up the idea that no level of alcohol is safe, given that low / moderate alcohol consumption is still associated with a small decrease in life expectancy. (Though there are always potential confounding factors in such studies)

It does lose you time, yes, but there's lots of other factors in a person's life like level of stress, air pollution, etc. that have similar or worse impact. Alcohol intake is at least somewhat more controllable than those factors, so it can be up to you whether that lost expectency matters.

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

#818

Post by gregwebs »

solox3 wrote: post #202

I 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…

Chris Masterjohn theorizes that alcohol can have a beneficial hormetic effect by antagonizing vitamin A and the body adapting to supply more vitamin A. However, he theorizes the maximum beneficial dosage is about 2/3 of a single drink.

https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/lite-videos/2018/12/13/is-alc...

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

#820

Post by airstrike »

wyclif wrote: post #790
idontwantthis wrote: post #778

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Secondhand smoke is the cost of being in a bar outside of the US. Good luck making friends with European expats without some secondhand smoke.

Used to be that bars were the place you went in the US to smoke and drink. Since you can't smoke in bars (Note: "pubs" for UK readers) anymore, there's less of a reason to go to them, and it incentivizes drinking at home. Which has led to a lot of bars closing and fewer of them than ever.

I don't think we're trying to solve for maximizing the number of bars
Post reply on HN