891–900 of 1001 posts
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…
I don't think the article is stating anything controversial here. The position that any amount of alcohol is harmful is not contradictory with the position that alcohol is beneficial in reducing cardiovascular risk. In other words, the framing effect is leading to a cognitive bias. One position is framed in terms of negative outcomes, while the other is framed in terms of positive outcomes. Hence the visceral reactio…
“Studies have shown that even small amounts of alcohol can increase a person's risk of cardiovascular disease”
“To date, no reliable correlation has been found between moderate alcohol consumption and a lower risk of heart disease”
I don't think the article is stating anything controversial here. The position that any amount of alcohol is harmful is not contradictory with the position that alcohol is beneficial in reducing cardiovascular risk. In other words, the framing effect is leading to a cognitive bias. One position is framed in terms of negative outcomes, while the other is framed in terms of positive outcomes. Hence the visceral reactio…
Actually the headline implies that there is no cardiovascular benefit. “Studies have shown that even small amounts of alcohol can increase a person's risk of cardiovascular disease” “To date, no reliable correlation has been found between moderate alcohol consumption and a lower risk of heart disease”
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With over a billion smokers on the planet, or ~20% of the population, it’s not that absurd to worry about urban smoke outdoors contributing to urban pollution. Nor wood burning house & backyard fires either, nor cars, but that’s a different debate… We aren’t around smokers once in a while, we’re around them constantly . Even urban outdoor second hand smoke really is a higher risk than air travel radiation. Yes I want…
It's not absurd to worry about it, it is absurd to say there is no safe exposure level and leave it at that. Especially because so many people smoke it is important to be informed about the actual risks of second hand smoke. If I'm walking down the street do I need to cross the street if I see someone approach with a cigarette? If I'm at a bar and smell smoke coming in should I leave?
To be fair, the CDC does not ‘leave it at that’. Their page that @dionidium linked to does not either start with or stop with the statement “there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke.” It’s one statement among many that include actual statistics, and so incredulity over a line of summary taken out of context might be slightly misplaced.
The CDC is in the business of setting guidelines, so the context of their statement that it’s not risk free is a suggestion that regardless of your situation, it would be better to not expose yourself to smoke. This happens to be in complete agreement with the message and recently updated guidelines by the World Health Organization, and with statements by the American Medical Association.
Reasonable people are free to make reasonable choices. A little smoking and drinking isn’t going to kill anyone, and we all know that. So we don’t need to get upset when someone says a little is a little bit bad. That said, for someone with athsma, they might reasonably choose to cross the street, since smoke is a trigger and meeting someone on the street who smokes is a very common occurrence if you walk around in urban areas. If they go to a bar, then they’re probably asking for it. :P
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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’…
Great comment. Way too much of HN is invested in "nanny state bad and corrupt" justified with FUD-like narratives. There's always this low-simmering culture war here. And really, air travel radiation is the hill these types of people want to die on? The problem with conservative forums like HN is eventually you get on this treadmill of "and so and so isn't so bad" be it alcohol, smoking, Hitler, etc that's a mix of i…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually the headline implies that there is no cardiovascular benefit. “Studies have shown that even small amounts of alcohol can increase a person's risk of cardiovascular disease” “To date, no reliable correlation has been found between moderate alcohol consumption and a lower risk of heart disease”
Yes, relative to abstaining. If there's a 40% risk reduction in cardiovascular mortality in moderate drinkers, then there will be a 60% increase in risk for the moderate drinking, relative to someone who abstains.
Unscientific propaganda. The best scientific evidence we have suggests moderate consumption of alcohol protects the heart. From the Harvard School of Public Health: > More than 100 prospective studies show an inverse association between light to moderate drinking and risk of heart attack, ischemic (clot-caused) stroke, peripheral vascular disease, sudden cardiac death, and death from all cardiovascular causes. [20] T…
I don't know what the truth is here, and the article you cited doesn't have a date on it, but the sources it cites are pretty old - flipping through them, the most recent seems to be 2017. The source that's cited in that quote you posted is 20 years old. Nutrition is a notoriously difficult field to study. It's easier for me to believe that the consensus has shifted, and is perhaps not yet stable, than that there is an organization which stands to benefit from people believing alcohol is a modicum more harmful than it is.
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 robust data that the risk of first-hand smoke is not a linear relationship between cancer (and other bad stuff) and dose--no amount of smoking is safe. To be frank you are uninformed on basic statistics as well as medicine. You are doing the standard thing that many educated people do when they think they are smarter and more informed than they are. You dress up a bad take as if you found some secret (CDC's…
Yes but a moderate amount with good friends is great for my soul.
My friend and family groups have been making a consistent effort to stop romanticizing alcohol and have gatherings without it. There's no denying alcohol is a social lubricant that can be very enjoyable.
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.
> 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…
At the very least, the US drug schedule system is completely out of whack with actual risks. There's tons of sched 1 drugs which are objectively safer than alcohol.