Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults • Hacker News Board

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#41

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 9:10 PM UTC

pekk wrote: post #29

ryanmim wrote: post #12

I drink way too much. I've accepted this. What stops me from drinking way too much? Not much, because I'm able to rationalize my drinking with the many beneficial effects touted. There's a lot of information about how drinking a bit is helpful for heart disease and how it basically reduces mortality across the board. More information is needed about how drinking is HARMFUL beyond cirrhosis and the short term effects…

IIRC, someone else with more expertise may show up, but the studies showing that drinking is helpful for heart disease say that this is about drinking one. Not "way too much" - mortality increases dramatically if you drink way too much, over what it would be if you didn't drink at all. The advantage of drinking is completely erased by drinking too much. The message isn't as mixed as you think.

[deleted]

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#42

Post by Hannan » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 9:11 PM UTC

transfire wrote: post #14

I suspect, the salient fact that the CDC is leaving out is that many, if not most, of these are from car accidents. Also, by qualifying it as "working-age" it skews the results heavily. What about all the people that did all that drinking and managed to make it past working age? Lucky for us, automated cars are going to solve most of this problem in a decade or two. So a more honest assessment would answer how many a…

>> I suspect, the salient fact that the CDC is leaving out is that many, if not most, of these are from car accidents.

"About 1.7 million people died from short-term causes such as crashes or accidents, compared to approximately 800,000 who died from long-term health causes like cancer or strokes, according to the study."

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#43

Post by j_jochem » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 9:11 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #18

adwf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tricky part in my mind is determining what exactly a quality of life issue is in the first place. I know plenty of moderate, sensible drinkers who would consider their quality of life lowered if there were any more restrictions placed on alcohol. It's not just a price issue, but all sorts of things like not being able to buy alcohol on a Sunday, despite not being religious. Or one that I personally still experien…

The threshold for binge drinking described in the article is well into the "I'd be smashed" territory, so there's no alcohol scaremongering in this case. Also things like free-soloing (corrected as per comment below), and for that matter things society frowns on like needle-drug use, are self-limiting and have orders of magnitude less impact than binge drinking. That's where prioritization washes out pursuing ineffec…

I suspect that what you understand the word free-climbing to mean is not what it actually refers to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_climbing

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#44

Post by freditup » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 9:14 PM UTC

Good reminder I think that we should never pressure anyone to drink. Whether for health, family, religious, personal, or any other reasons, there's absolutely nothing wrong with choosing not to drink alcohol. I enjoy a drink now and then, but I get quite upset when people pressure others to drink.

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#45

Post by mullingitover » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 9:15 PM UTC

I've often wondered why we can't replace alcohol with a less damaging recreational drug. We could take a tranqilizer like valium, make a dilute solution of it, add flavoring or whatever it takes to give it alcohol's 'kick' and end up with an acceptable substitute. This isn't to say that valium is 'safe' but it's far less toxic to the body than alcohol.

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#46

Post by quasque » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 9:15 PM UTC

Headline should be modified to indicate that the study was carried out in the USA. It's not generally applicable to the world population, or necessarily to all high-income countries.

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#47

Post by bluehazed » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 9:16 PM UTC

I've pretty much resolved myself to slowly drinking myself to death, I'm pretty sure I'd have killed myself due to boredom or stress otherwise.

Hopefully maybe getting out of my current field (devops) and going back into school (have a CS degree to finish) will help a bit.

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#48

Post by AJ007 » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 9:20 PM UTC

rimantas wrote: post #13

Having in mind how many deaths are caused by health issues related to obesity what number should be in headline "Eating behind _ in 10 deaths of working-age adults"?

Alcohol and obesity are related. Someone who is a heavy drinker is increasing their required calorie count by 30-50%. If you take in to account the glycemic index these are very expensive calories.

Choices are: exercise really hard (marathon training) or starve yourself of normal food. Most will end up overweight instead. I'm not convinced either of those three choices are healthy in the long run.

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#49

Post by SoftwareMaven » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 9:20 PM UTC

rimantas wrote: post #13

Having in mind how many deaths are caused by health issues related to obesity what number should be in headline "Eating behind _ in 10 deaths of working-age adults"?

Obesity alone is not the cause of those deaths; it is just another symptom. In fact, when fat is stored subcutaneously, there appears to be little to no increase in mortality, and, for some (middle aged women at least), it is actually protective. The real disease is metabolic syndrome, which affects both thin people and fat people. It is a constellation of disorders including abdominal weight gain, fatty liver disease, high blood pressure, dyslipidemia, and high blood sugar or diabetes.

Metabolic syndrome is the killer (often leading to cardiovascular disease, liver or kidney failure, blindness, amputations, and, perhaps, dimentia/Alzheimer's [the studies on this are early and not yet cinclusive]), but our society is so focused on weight that thin people automatically assume they are immune to it and everybody carrying any extra weight is assumed to have one foot in the grave. If you eat like crap (a sugar-laden, high trans fat diet of processed food-like substances), you are at risk unless you won the genetic lottery (and those genetics may just buy you time, not immunity).

Re: Drinking behind 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults

#50

Post by ufo » Sat, Jun 28, 2014, 9:21 PM UTC

rwmj wrote: post #25

mikegioia wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what's surprising is that 1/10 is pretty high for something that technically could be prevented entirely. It has nothing to do with other causes of death.

"Technically could be prevented" .. how? Prohibition didn't work out well, and people can make booze with some fruit juice, air and a radiator even in the most extremely regulated environments[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruno

Prohibition is not the only alternative out there. For example, tobacco was never outlawed but now many countries place heavy taxes and advertisement restrictions on it. Overall its become a much less acceptable habit than it used to be and cigarrete related illness has gone down.