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

No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 1001 posts

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#301

Post by peanut_worm »

dfinninger wrote: post #154
endisneigh wrote: post #42

Of course it isn’t. Drink water. Unfortunately some people believe they can’t enjoy themselves without alcohol. It’s curious: - babies have fun without drinking - kids have fun without drinking - some teens have fun without drinking Then at some point some people, as adults, feel like they have to drink to enjoy themselves? I wonder what happened. Edit: explicitly clarifying that I’m only talking about some people he…

I have tremendous enjoyment in my life without drinking. Running, hiking, biking, cooking, movies, road trips, museums, concerts, new restaurants, etc… There are also enjoyable things that involve drinking too, but _needing_ a drink to enjoy oneself seems a bit hyperbolic for the average adult, no?

Sure but if you are stuck at home because its 8pm on a tuesday because you work all day you can’t exactly go hiking. If you have money and time its easy to entertain yourself.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#302

Post by chasebank »

You know what's worse than drinking alcohol? Sitting in a chair all day staring at a screen.

Why do we need studies for things we've known for centuries? Drink, eat, exercise, all in moderation. Get outside and move often as possible. It's not rocket science.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#303

Post by wonderwonder »

BirAdam wrote: post #88
mmastrac wrote: post #11

Alcohol is one of the worst "drugs" on a personal/societal harm scale - if we're going to tolerate this at large, we should probably consider legalizing everything else that's less harmful to at least be consistent. While we're at it, let's de-stigmatize the abuse of substances and treat it like a real mental health issue.

All drugs should be decriminalized. Shooting people in drug raids is far worse for those people than are the drugs. Likewise, locking people in cages with other misfits, criminals, malcontents, and addicts isn’t smart (especially considering that drugs are in the prisons too). If the goal is truly harm reduction, people need to simply work to convince drug users to not use drugs (whether those are opioids, alcohol, t…

I am not sure where I fall on the all drugs should be legal argument but I do know that because I spent ~$400 to get a medical marijuana card I can legally buy pot at the local dispensary in my state and smoke it with zero repercussions. In the mean time the jails are absolutely full of people who are there because they did not spend the $400. It is morally insane for that to continue. People are getting rich off selling marijuana in a dispensary while others are serving life sentences for selling it out of their home.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#304

Post by colechristensen »

nabla9 wrote: post #275
colechristensen wrote: post #225

Question one: what is the world heart federation? I have never heard of it before today. Two: > The evidence is clear: any level of alcohol consumption can lead to loss of healthy life. The evidence is not clear. There are plenty of studies showing benefits. “Any level” “can” makes the statement technically true but meaningless, you could replace alcohol with anything and that would also be true. If you want to back…

> There are plenty of studies showing benefits. Yes. And these studies are being exposed as the product of alcohol lobby. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/3/21/17139036/he... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6055701/

I am perfectly aware of p-hackng. I still don’t believe it without actual evidence, I get strong vibes of people wanting this to be true which would take more than a little evidence to overcome.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#305

Post by kukx »

dasil003 wrote: post #79
lotsofpulp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consistency in legal matters seems like a good and necessary thing for ensuring fairness. What is the basis for Emerson’s quote to apply here?

Consistency in how the law is applied is important, but not that the composite of all laws be absolutely fair relative to each other. That is "foolish consistency" because it's impossible except by very closed-minded fundamentalism. The idea that you find the "worst" thing that is legal and then repeal all laws against things which are "better" is not a viable legislative strategy.

Also the exceptions exist usually for a good reason. Trying to get rid of them without understanding it is a bad idea.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#307

Post by shafyy »

saberience wrote: post #156
shafyy wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smoking is for sure worse than alcohol consumption: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-by-risk-... Global yearly deaths by smoking: 7.1 million Global yearly deaths by alcohol usage: 2.84 million

This doesn't include all of the other harmful effects from alcohol, like violence and injures. How much marital physical abuse happens due to alcohol? I'd rather have someone harm themselves from smoking then someone beat their wife while drunk.

Not to defend violent alcoholics, but people who get violent when drunk already have a problem, and would also violent when sober (they probably are). Most people who drink are not violent.

Regarding injuries: Sure, but the statistics in general doesn't include stuff that doesn't kill you but still is bad, like non-lethal lung problems from smoking.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#308

Post by locallost »

dasil003 wrote: post #79
lotsofpulp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consistency in legal matters seems like a good and necessary thing for ensuring fairness. What is the basis for Emerson’s quote to apply here?

Consistency in how the law is applied is important, but not that the composite of all laws be absolutely fair relative to each other. That is "foolish consistency" because it's impossible except by very closed-minded fundamentalism. The idea that you find the "worst" thing that is legal and then repeal all laws against things which are "better" is not a viable legislative strategy.

There is nothing foolish about treating things that are the same consistently. It would be foolish to grant animals citizenships to keep it consistent with humans, but just as e.g. human rights are applied consistently to people no matter where they come from or how they look like so should our policies to things be in general. Alcohol is a drug with a tremendous potential for harm, and if a society decides it wants to ban those, again there is nothing foolish in doing that consistently. But when looked at like that, it's clear there is not much rational in the way we regulate things. It's just a bunch of traditions and whims.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#309

Post by blfr »

mmastrac wrote: post #11

Alcohol is one of the worst "drugs" on a personal/societal harm scale - if we're going to tolerate this at large, we should probably consider legalizing everything else that's less harmful to at least be consistent. While we're at it, let's de-stigmatize the abuse of substances and treat it like a real mental health issue.

> we should probably consider legalizing everything else that's less harmful to at least be consistent

This argument is brought up fairly regularly but I don't think it's very good. We cannot go back on alcohol, Americans tried pretty hard.

Our choice is limited to alcohol or alcohol plus whatever we legalize. Harm from alcohol is the hard lower bound on harm from substance use.

Re: No amount of alcohol is good for the heart, says World Heart Federation

#310

Post by ravenstine »

P_I_Staker wrote: post #118
melissalobos wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't worry, in 5-10 years it will be good for you again. I don't know about that, it it looking more like Alcohol is heading down the path of cigarettes where the more unbiased funding and studies that are done, the worse it appears. There have been several convincing reviews[1] recently that showed an increased risk of cancer at any dosage. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32584303/ (First one I could find eas…

Yeah, it’s really a myth that science is changing so much. You can look at dietary recommendations from the 70s, and they’re fine. Eat your plants and don’t eat garbage. The food pyramid was more a product of lobbying than science. The doctors advice wasn't that bad, although there would be less knowledge of the dangers of refined carbs. People want it to be true that the doctors don’t know what they’re doing, but it…

Honestly, I find it baffling when people think that doctors know what they're talking about when it comes to nutrition. Maybe things have changed in recent years, and that would be great, but in my experience and from the anecdotes of others, my conception of what doctors understand is the opposite of what you describe.

Granted, I do agree that the science actually hasn't changed that much, and that doctors who do research know ath they're talking about, but your average MD is pretty clueless about nutrition and fitness because that's really not a subject that gets priority in med school. There are even doctors today who still give advice along the lines of the Food Pyramid and My Plate. I've heard more than one account in my social circles of doctors telling people the myth that dietary fat flows freely through your blood vessels and clogs them exactly the same way that bacon grease can clog drain pipes.

> People want it to be true that the doctors don’t know what they’re doing

Also, the root of this statement is something I am surprised by. People want their doctors to not know what they're doing? In what universe is that true? Maybe that fits your experience, but this is a phenomenon I've never encountered in the slightest.

Post reply on HN