31–40 of 77 posts
My purely observational take on this: moderate drinking itself is the myth: most people who drink daily do not drink in anything resembling moderate amounts, especially as the years go by.
There are places that have a wine culture, where people drink with every meal and that have less alcoholics and over-consumption than other countries without such a culture.
In France, we have a strong belief that one glass of wine per day is something sane and you should actually do it. There is no scientific study behind it and every other tests seem in fact to tend to show that alcohol is harmful for the body. But because it makes everyone happy to believe so (myself included!), we root for it.
There was a recent large study, mentioned in the article, that said that drinking up to 6 drinks a day was healthier than being teetotal. It got a lot of publicity. And it's probably not true, so it's good that articles like this one are appearing.
http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/truth-wont-admit-dr...
This is not an area where I have much more than a passing interest, so much of this is over my head, so to speak. I was first introduced to the idea of healthy moderate drinking in Walter Willett's Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy . Here is a link to one of the studies he cites: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12519921 Does this study not constitute a randomized trial on the benefit of moderate drinking?
I just read the Methods section of that article. It does not use a RCT design; it's an observational study based on questionnaire data. All standard confound caveats apply (with the exception of the controls accounted for in the paper).
Willett says in his book, "When the first reports appeared linking moderate alcohol consumption with lower rates of heart disease, many doctors and scientists thought that some other habit shared by drinkers, not the drinking accounted for the benefit. Today the evidence strongly points to alcohol itself."
Unfortunately I don't have the copy of the book with me to check, and that study was the only one I could find by searching the book through Amazon. I would be interested to see what other evidence he points to.
In France, we have a strong belief that one glass of wine per day is something sane and you should actually do it. There is no scientific study behind it and every other tests seem in fact to tend to show that alcohol is harmful for the body. But because it makes everyone happy to believe so (myself included!), we root for it.
This is not an area where I have much more than a passing interest, so much of this is over my head, so to speak. I was first introduced to the idea of healthy moderate drinking in Walter Willett's Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy . Here is a link to one of the studies he cites: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12519921 Does this study not constitute a randomized trial on the benefit of moderate drinking?
In France, we have a strong belief that one glass of wine per day is something sane and you should actually do it. There is no scientific study behind it and every other tests seem in fact to tend to show that alcohol is harmful for the body. But because it makes everyone happy to believe so (myself included!), we root for it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really? I have plenty of friends who have a glass of wine (or scotch) a night; Are you saying that strikes you as an uncommon phenomenon?
Are you sure it's just a glass? I started like that and atleast in my case, I very much progressed far beyond moderate amounts in the span of 3 years.
Every time some statistical "studies" come out I think of which industry is going to benefit from it.
So... what did you think of? I can't think of any industries that would directly benefit from people drinking less.
My purely observational take on this: moderate drinking itself is the myth: most people who drink daily do not drink in anything resembling moderate amounts, especially as the years go by.
My observation is that my drinking habits match my food habits. Both require careful attention although alcohol unlike food has a built-in negative feedback mechanism. I do a dry week without alcohol every once in a while just to make sure I can. I find doing a dry week without alcohol the same difficulty as dry week without diet Coke. Which is to say I like diet Coke a lot and both require effort. You get things lik…
My purely observational take on this: moderate drinking itself is the myth: most people who drink daily do not drink in anything resembling moderate amounts, especially as the years go by.
You'd be surprised. There are places that have a wine culture, where people drink with every meal and that have less alcoholics and over-consumption than other countries without such a culture.