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No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health

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Re: No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health

#221

Post by GuB-42 »

giantg2 wrote: post #129
roenxi wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, is it a solid article? They say "Risks start from the first drop" and I am having a a hard time imagining how they could prove that, regardless of how likely it is. Looks like fearmongering. I'm sympathetic to the idea that everyone should stop drinking. I'm not a fan of mind-altering drugs and it makes for boring conversation. But we need to get used to the idea that literally nothing is safe. Living kills…

"Risks start from the first drop" If this is true, the medical community is actively causing harm. Many compounded or suspended children's medicines contain alcohol. Many do not have alcohol free alternatives.

All medicine have risks, the added alcohol is a tiny extra risk that the medical community thinks it is worth taking because it has benefits that are greater than the risks. For example, other chemicals that could be used as a substitute may be worse or poorly tested.

Medicine containing alcohol often comes with a few more counter-indications because of it, plus it limits the sales to people who wish to maintain strict abstinence, like Muslims. If they keep the alcohol, it is probably for a good reason.

It is completely different from recommending alcohol itself.

Re: No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health

#222

Post by makeitdouble »

fredley wrote: post #6

This is not news, it has been known for some time. For anyone wanting to get an in-depth, balanced, and rigorous take on alcohol I can heartily recommend Drink? by David Nutt. Reading it has made me more mindful of when and why I choose to drink, and increasingly I find myself drinking less and less.

> David Nutt

To get a taste of the person before reading the book:

https://youtu.be/bASaIJMxMqI

Re: No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health

#223

Post by skeeter2020 »

P_I_Staker wrote: post #207
makeitdouble wrote: post #178

> To identify a “safe” level of alcohol consumption, valid scientific evidence would need to demonstrate that at and below a certain level, there is no risk of illness or injury associated with alcohol consumption. The premise of this “no level of consumption is safe” is this requirement to prove 0 risk. If for instance drinking one glass everyday increases your cancer chances by 0.0000000001%, bringing it to 0. 0000…

Should we be establishing safe amounts of cigarette smoking? Safe amounts of gasoline to drink? Alcohol users really don't like people pointing out that their habit isn't safe.

and yet we do this all the time. Your city probably produces an air quality alert that has some form of ranges; I doubt it says "one particulate of pollution found in the air; stop breathing!".

Re: No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health

#224

Post by jp57 »

> Alcohol ... has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer decades ago – this is the highest risk group, which also includes asbestos, radiation and tobacco.

But as I understand it we do have a notion of "safe" dosages of radiation.

Isn't this statement then like saying "no level of exposure to radiation is safe for our health?" Maybe I'm wrong but I would think that the risk of cancer from radiation increases smoothly as the dosage increases such that "there is no threshold at which the carcinogenic effects 'switch on'". Thus, by extension, nobody should ever fly on an airplane because the increased radiation exposure is inherently unsafe.

The thing is, we draw these threshold lines on smooth continua all the time. Nothing special happens to you at midnight on your eighteenth or twenty-first birthday. You are not meaningfully more intoxicated at 0.07 BAC than at 0.08.

To the extent that we expect agencies like the WHO to help us make informed, practical decisions regarding this sort of absolutist statement seems like an abdication of that responsibility. It equates all drinking of any amount into a single class with no gradations, which is clearly false. Drinking a lot has a lot more risk than drinking a little. And drinking a little may add only a little risk to a life that's full of other risk.

Re: No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health

#225

Post by criddell »

makeitdouble wrote: post #178

> To identify a “safe” level of alcohol consumption, valid scientific evidence would need to demonstrate that at and below a certain level, there is no risk of illness or injury associated with alcohol consumption. The premise of this “no level of consumption is safe” is this requirement to prove 0 risk. If for instance drinking one glass everyday increases your cancer chances by 0.0000000001%, bringing it to 0. 0000…

I think the only time my grandma drank that I know of is a thimble full of wine at church communion a few times a year. Would these scientists have advised her to skip that ceremony?

Re: No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health

#226

Post by bamboozled »

thebigspacefuck wrote: post #201
rco8786 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For every of those is several people who died at 60 from liver disease

It’s happening to a lot of younger adults in their 30s now too.

You don't actually know if alcohol is the cause, it might be all the other shit that we've put into the environment to, such as PFOAs, PFOS, Microplastics, air polltion and more and more...

Re: No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health

#227

Post by zabzonk »

arlort wrote: post #204
zabzonk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is where i come from - uk. also they don't say how many of those cancers can actually be attributed directly to alcohol consumption. my guess would be few.

https://www.thelancet.com/article/S1470-2045(21)00279-5/full... > Globally, an estimated 741 300 (95% UI 558 500–951 200), or 4·1% (3·1–5·3), of all new cases of cancer in 2020 were attributable to alcohol consumption

that is "estimated"

Re: No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health

#229

Post by keymon-o »

ericmay wrote: post #114
keymon-o wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving may be a necessity while drinking is rarely an obligation. Also driving may cause instant harm while, drinking may cause a very much delayed harm. So, by knowing that not driving or not drinking are the safest choice I can choose to skip having a single drink and avoid driving if I don’t have to, thus completely minimizing the risk. It’s not worthless at all.

Sure but you can basically play this game forever and arrive at a very bad, but safe quality of life. Funny enough though driving is by far worse for your health than moderate or light drinking, and it’s even more insidious than drinking because not only do that negative effects take a long time to manifest, but they’re couched inside of a “necessity”.

Why would choosing a safer travel method or avoiding unnecessary drives ruin the quality of life? I am not proposing to quit living a life, only adjusting the methods of living. We obviously don’t share the same values regarding the quality of life.

I think it’s more funny you choose a rhetoric that suits your lifestyle and your needs, and dismiss that it might be helpful for people who don’t find alcohol culture appealing.

Re: No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health

#230

Post by caskstrength »

P_I_Staker wrote: post #207
makeitdouble wrote: post #178

> To identify a “safe” level of alcohol consumption, valid scientific evidence would need to demonstrate that at and below a certain level, there is no risk of illness or injury associated with alcohol consumption. The premise of this “no level of consumption is safe” is this requirement to prove 0 risk. If for instance drinking one glass everyday increases your cancer chances by 0.0000000001%, bringing it to 0. 0000…

Should we be establishing safe amounts of cigarette smoking? Safe amounts of gasoline to drink? Alcohol users really don't like people pointing out that their habit isn't safe.

> Alcohol users really don't like people pointing out that their habit isn't safe.

In my experience that is because people who point that out usually eat all kinds of crap full of sugar and transfats, drink bubbly-sugary drinks (is Coke even better than a good beer?), live in noisy polluted cities and often work themselves to death for status or 3rd car for their family or whatever. But somehow my couple of bottles of beer on weekend is a health emergency and we need to tax it 1000% and only allow to sell if from 9 to 10 am on Mondays or something...

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