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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

#321

Post by klodolph »

giantg2 wrote: post #319
klodolph wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If this is true, the medical community is actively causing harm. That’s kind of a bizarre way of phrasing it. Yes, the medical community actively causes lesser harms, with the goals of preventing greater harms. Radiation therapy and chemotherapy, for example, are extremely harmful! Yet we use them as cancer treatments because the cancer we are treating with them is probably more harmful than the treatment. Radiatio…

With alcohol, its often times added to medicines as an inactive ingredient with little to no therapeutic value. It also has alternatives. My main point is that's it's hypocritical to say one drop is dangerous and then have a myriad of children's meds containing it when alternative ingredients exist.

> My main point is that's it's hypocritical to say one drop is dangerous and then have a myriad of children's meds containing it when alternative ingredients exist.

You're miles away from making that point in a way that I can understand.

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

#322

Post by rayiner »

tptacek wrote: post #311
rayiner wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yeah, prohibition totally worked. Americans are much more compliant now, not to mention health and socially conscious. For example, the culture of alcohol use has disparate impacts on black and brown communities: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2771773/ ("African Americans and Hispanics bear a disproportionately greater burden of alcohol-related health problems compared to whites, as evidenced by highe…

It sounds like you're trolling, and that you're not seriously proposing a return to prohibition, but rather using it as a snarky frame with which to criticize unrelated beliefs.

I'm not trolling. I think America would be better if people didn't drink. I drink sometimes, but I also eat fried foods and skip the gym and do other things I'd acknowledge people shouldn't do.

Nor am I criticizing unrelated beliefs. I don't disagree with SJWs that we live in a society dominated by the attitudes and culture of white European Americans--including their drinking culture. I typically disagree with them on whether that's a bad thing, or how we should frame that for kids, or how that should affect legal relations between people. But I don't disagree with the notion that aspects of American culture adapted from Europeans--in this case drinking culture, but I'd also throw parenting culture in there, and individualism--can have negative impacts on minority groups.

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

#323

Post by yread »

ginko wrote: post #92
BobbyJo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beer in the EU is often ~4% alcohol. Half a liter is barely more than a can of Coors light in terms of alcohol volume.

>Beer in the EU is often ~4% alcohol. Where would that be? German beer is usually 5-5.5%, same for Austria. In Norway it's 4.5-4.7%

"Desitka" ("10" meaning 10 plato degrees of sugar content before fermentation) is very popular in Czech Republic. It usually has 3.5% - 4% ABV. Beer consumption in Czech Republic is about 130l per person per year. That's 0.35l per person per day. It used to be closer to 0.5l but the average ABV % probably went up so alcohol consumption stayed about the same.

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

#324

Post by 3D25157725 »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #236
P_I_Staker wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't give a safe number of cigarettes, do they? There probably is a number that's minimally harmful, that lowers with age. Alcohol has numerically similar numbers of cancer cases, and cancer is just one aspect. Now it is less, and we can argue about how widespread the use is ect. However, it cases 1/3 of the cases, heart disease, mental health problems. Are you a drinker? Especially since quitting, I've noticed…

as a continued social drinker, or more general doer of anything, i've noticed that anyone who no longer does that thing is typically quite vocal and negative towards said thing. Set aside alcohol for a minute; this article is saying that because the absolute risk of an activity is not zero, the activity is inheriently unsafe. That's not true, not an appropriate strategy for decision making, and most importantly not a…

>> i've noticed that anyone who no longer does that thing is typically quite vocal and negative towards said thing.

Well ya? Is that not self-evident?

See, there's this thing I enjoy very much, but I was forced to stop because of evidence of the negative consequences. Now, since I am a kind person, I can share the knowledge of those negative consequences so may be you could avoid them, too.

Said another way, if I were not negative to said activity that I enjoy, I would still be doing it. And if I were indifferent to the well-being of others, I wouldn't be vocal/share.

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

#325

Post by christophilus »

ipqk wrote: post #280
christophilus wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. We should. You can smoke a cigar a month and not be considered a smoker by life insurance companies. You can smoke 4 a week and not be considered a smoker by health insurance companies. I’d love to see actual stats because I really enjoy a pipe and am willing to take a slight risk for it. No level of automobile usage is safe, either, but I know the risks. My chances of dying due to driving (sober) are much high…

Are you sure? Because I mentioned that I had smoked one cigar at my high school graduation (which about 3 years before the health insurance interview), and I got demoted from 'preferred plus' to 'preferred' for my life insurance. This was about 20 years ago.'

I’m sure. At least with OneAmerica and Northwestern.

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

#326

Post by kbelder »

barbazoo wrote: post #125

So much denialism going on here, it's like talking to my alcoholic relative. This shouldn't trigger such a strong reaction, if it does, one should look into why that is.

I'd be perfectly fine never touching a drop of alcohol again, and think this sort of dire warning is crap. It's actively harming the dissemination of good health advice.

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

#327

Post by rs999gti »

sremani wrote: post #99
6d6b73 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Alcohol is so culturally embedded in West the replies here are so sad. Alcohol is poison and it fucks up kidney, liver and brain. Sets cortisol base levels higher and perpetuates a habit in such a way that, you HAVE to drink to feel normal and relaxed. This cycle perpetuates and you associate alcohol with relaxation all the while alcohol is imposing higher and higher tax on you. It is like a robber - robbing $100 whe…

How do you know if someone is a teetotaler?

Don't worry they'll tell you.

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

#328

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #322
tptacek wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're trolling, and that you're not seriously proposing a return to prohibition, but rather using it as a snarky frame with which to criticize unrelated beliefs.

I'm not trolling. I think America would be better if people didn't drink. I drink sometimes, but I also eat fried foods and skip the gym and do other things I'd acknowledge people shouldn't do. Nor am I criticizing unrelated beliefs. I don't disagree with SJWs that we live in a society dominated by the attitudes and culture of white European Americans--including their drinking culture. I typically disagree with them…

Fair enough! I stand corrected.

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

#329

Post by djkivi »

paiute wrote: post #131
arsome wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal here is to dispel the "extends health" and similar claims often made about light or moderate drinking. If you take a look at the studies you can determine how much of an increased risk you're comfortable with. For example, figure 5 in https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... When doing this analysis though be sure to note that scientists studying this use 10g drinks, which is 12.5mL of…

I might be wrong here, but I have never heard the claim that 2 beers might be good for your health. I have heard that with wine, but that's not a claim that alcohol is good for your health.

Here is WebMD with an article about how beer may have potential health benefits:

https://www.webmd.com/diet/beer-good-for-you

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

#330

Post by rileymat2 »

RandomLensman wrote: post #185
rileymat2 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “We cannot talk about a so-called safe level of alcohol use. It doesn’t matter how much you drink – the risk to the drinker’s health starts from the first drop of any alcoholic beverage. The only thing that we can say for sure is that the more you drink, the more harmful it is – or, in other words, the less you drink, the safer it is,” explains Dr Carina Ferreira-Borges, acting Unit Lead for Noncommunicable Disease…

Why is alcohol only dangerous in alcoholic beverages? Fruit juice (they real stuff) also contains small amounts of alcohol, for example.

That is an excellent question, perhaps the benefits of those fruit juices outweigh the small amounts of harm a small amount of alcohol may create.

If was to get my random opinion without expertise, I would guess that sugar is the dominating factor as to whether fruit juice is healthy combined with your typical non-juice sugar consumption or not; given you are not deficient in some key nutrient.

But to clarify, I was just quoting the article in response to the idea that the dose is the issue. I am a software developer without any expertise in the issue.

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