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Drinking alcohol every day cuts risk of heart disease in men by more than third

news.bbc.co.uk

1–10 of 12 posts

Re: Drinking alcohol every day cuts risk of heart disease in men by more than third

#2
this type of study should be headlined thusly: strong correlation found between alcohol consumption and decreased risk of heart disease. but I'm not naive enough to not understand why science has been sensationalized with inaccurate headlines for centuries.

Re: Drinking alcohol every day cuts risk of heart disease in men by more than third

#6
Two great books, both by an engineer out of the UK.

    The Epidemiologists: Have They Got Scares for You!
    Sorry, Wrong Number!: The Abuse of Measurement
The shenanigans that go on with the data, just to get an interesting result ... and thus a published paper, are disturbingly like the GW fiasco. These books definitely make you read these "Eating X helps with disease Y" kinds of headlines with a jaded eye.

That said, I think in this instance, the fact that alcohol thins the blood, (which many drugs prescribed to people at risk of heart disease also do) lends credence that there is causation here.

Re: Drinking alcohol every day cuts risk of heart disease in men by more than third

#8

  A) The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart
     attacks than the British or Americans. 
  B) On the other hand, the French eat a lot of fat and also
     suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or 
     Americans. 
  C) The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer
     heart attacks than the British or Americans. 
  D) The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine, and
     also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or 
     Americans 
  E) Conclusion: Eat & drink what you like. It's speaking 
     English that kills you. - Author Unknown

Re: Drinking alcohol every day cuts risk of heart disease in men by more than third

#9
post #8

A) The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans. B) On the other hand, the French eat a lot of fat and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans. C) The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans. D) The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine, and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the Br…

I do love that joke. But it's not un-worthwhile to note that the Japanese drink like they're training for the Drunken Olympics.

Re: Drinking alcohol every day cuts risk of heart disease in men by more than third

#10

this type of study should be headlined thusly: strong correlation found between alcohol consumption and decreased risk of heart disease. but I'm not naive enough to not understand why science has been sensationalized with inaccurate headlines for centuries.

Correlation -- yes! Though it would be better to say "inverse correlation found between alcohol and CHD".

Many people don't get that this observation is entirely consistent with alcohol's increasing the risk of CHD.

An analogy is that car accidents correlate strongly with use of the brake pedal. Yet we know brake pedals reduce the risk of car accidents. If asked we can explain why this is so.

>The exact mechanisms are as yet unclear

If they were doing proper, hard science they would be conjecturing theories about such mechanisms and then testing those theories.

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