Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

span.health

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 111 posts

Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#101

Post by serverholic »

nradov wrote: post #98
serverholic wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making so many assumptions in your posts. Yes, to do a proper RCT you need to confine and monitor subjects in a controlled environment. YOU used the word "years" and nobody ever suggested a study that long. If you're implying that you need a study that long to gather meaningful results then that's just simply not true. Let me put this plainly, you can design RCTs that are: A) Safe for participants. B) Aren't t…

In the general case "B" and "D" are mutually exclusive. For the important questions in human nutrition like whether a diet high in saturated fat increases the risk of all cause mortality it takes many years for significant effects to appear.

There are many useful things we have learned and can learn from shorter studies.

Best of luck to you. I'm out.

Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#102

Post by carpedimebagjoe »

When I used to moderately binge some moons ago, I could feel my heart rate was all over the place. And the hangovers the next day didn't feel great either. Redbull vodkas should be called "Deathwish."

This might be an unpopular opinion: I like the taste of some alcoholic beverages, but the slight impairment from just one and the risk of a hangover is too much. I'd rather drink club soda and lime than imbibe.

Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#103

Post by the_only_law »

carpedimebagjoe wrote: post #102

When I used to moderately binge some moons ago, I could feel my heart rate was all over the place. And the hangovers the next day didn't feel great either. Redbull vodkas should be called "Deathwish." This might be an unpopular opinion: I like the taste of some alcoholic beverages, but the slight impairment from just one and the risk of a hangover is too much. I'd rather drink club soda and lime than imbibe.

> This might be an unpopular opinion: I like the taste of some alcoholic beverages, but the slight impairment from just one and the risk of a hangover is too much. I'd rather drink club soda and lime than imbibe.

Honestly I feel similar. I don’t mind drinking. Taste isn’t an issue and the immediate effects of intoxication are “fun” but I almost always feel like shit during and after the comedown. The after effects of a hangover are in my option worse than most of drugs I’ve tried.

Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#104

Post by kilotaras »

nradov wrote: post #95
serverholic wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you assuming this hypothetical study will rely on subject reported data?

What other method is there to gather nutritional data? The researchers either have to confine and monitor the subjects in a controlled environment, or leave them loose and rely on subject reported data. Maybe someday we'll have better technical solutions but for now those are the only practical options. If you have a better approach for study design then I'm sure nutrition researchers would love to hear it.

Deliver food for the family to their door every morning?

Yes, it is relatively expensive, but not prohibitively so.

Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#105

Post by 1_player »

angrais wrote: post #96
1_player wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Massive inflammation due to multiple unknown factors, making me even more intolerant to the simplest of food and spices. Carnivore is basically the ultimate elimination diet. Oh yeah, and my brain works noticeably better than it has for the past 15 years. It's 100% reproducible for me, but I just need a lapse of judgement, the wrong food, and it's back to the dark pit of doom and extreme tiredness.

How do you know it's the increase of meat and not another factor, such as prior consumption of grains or such?

I never said it's the increase of meat in my diet that makes me feel better, but more likely the elimination of everything else. Grains were not the only factor, though a big one for me.

Also, ketosis is a superior state of being than the carb/insulin/blood sugar rollercoaster IMO.

Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#106

Post by toper-centage »

grok22 wrote: post #66
serverholic wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epidemiology strikes again! I watch a lot of videos on nutrition and researchers often say that randomized control trials are too expensive so we need to rely on epidemiology despite its flaws. What I find crazy is that nations around the world collaborate and spend billions of dollars building a particle accelerator and yet we can't seem to find money to research something that affects every human every day of their…

Because it involves humans? I am only half-joking, but I think it's much harder to track and study large numbers of humans than it is to do esoteric particle physics experiments.

We can't use maths to describe our digestive systems adequately, but we do it for particles.

Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#107

Post by bagacrap »

filoeleven wrote: post #99
AlwaysRock wrote: post #37

Booze is not good for you. If you think you are dependent on it or are concerned with the impact it has on your life try stopping. Stopping changed my life greatly.

What if stopping feels like more effort than it’s worth?

If you don't feel like your own health is worth much, maybe try seeing a therapist?

Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#108

Post by nradov »

kilotaras wrote: post #104
nradov wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other method is there to gather nutritional data? The researchers either have to confine and monitor the subjects in a controlled environment, or leave them loose and rely on subject reported data. Maybe someday we'll have better technical solutions but for now those are the only practical options. If you have a better approach for study design then I'm sure nutrition researchers would love to hear it.

Deliver food for the family to their door every morning? Yes, it is relatively expensive, but not prohibitively so.

That has been done in a few studies. But delivering food doesn't mean that study subjects actually ate it, or didn't eat other food. So it doesn't solve the data quality problem.

Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#109

Post by AlwaysRock »

filoeleven wrote: post #99
AlwaysRock wrote: post #37

Booze is not good for you. If you think you are dependent on it or are concerned with the impact it has on your life try stopping. Stopping changed my life greatly.

What if stopping feels like more effort than it’s worth?

I don't know you or your situation but if stopping feels like a large effort then it may be worth examining your relationship and possible reliance on alcohol.

Re: Surprisingly little alcohol can affect heart rate variability

#110

Post by floor2 »

niyikiza wrote: post #84
Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That 'alcohol reduces stress' is true short term, its not so much true long term. Think of those nasal sprays that reduce congestion. They absolutely do that, breathe that stuff in and it opens your airway real good, but at the same time it irritates those tissues so when the effect wears off, the airway becomes even more blocked than before because of the inflammation from the irritation. Alcohol does a similar thin…

Is there any evidence that alcohol does it that way? Sincere question.

There's a lot of research showing that yes, it does.

Here's a quote: "Long-term, heavy drinking can actually alter the brain’s chemistry, re-setting what is “normal.” It causes the release of higher amounts of cortisol and adrenocorticotropic hormone. When this hormonal balance is shifted, it impacts the way the body perceives stress and how it responds to it.21,22 For example, a long-term heavy drinker may experience higher levels of anxiety when faced with a stressful situation than someone who never drank or who drank only moderately" from https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/AA85/AA85.htm

You can search for alcohol's impact on GABA, cortisol, or just stress in general and find plenty of science showing that there are significant negative impacts to how the body responds to stress or various key hormones due to damage from alcohol.

Post reply on HN