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

Why many studies wrongly claim it's healthy to drink a little alcohol

newscientist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 148 posts

Re: Why many studies wrongly claim it's healthy to drink a little alcohol

#51

Post by coldcode »

goda90 wrote: post #37
FredPret wrote: post #15

Here’s one of the fundamental problems with studying human diet and psychology, from the article: > The best way to assess the effects of alcohol would be to randomly assign people to drink it or not in childhood and then monitor their health and drinking over the rest of their lives. Since such studies cannot be done, researchers instead have to ask people about their drinking habits and follow them over much shorte…

I hope someday we could develop computers that can do a molecularly accurate simulation of the human body. Then we could try all the inputs we can imagine, with a bunch of different sets of genes, and figure out exactly what's good or not.

People are working on it, but its a long way from being complete. See, for example, https://www.quantamagazine.org/with-digital-twins-the-doctor... on modeling the circulatory system.

Re: Why many studies wrongly claim it's healthy to drink a little alcohol

#52

Post by dynm »

FredPret wrote: post #15

Here’s one of the fundamental problems with studying human diet and psychology, from the article: > The best way to assess the effects of alcohol would be to randomly assign people to drink it or not in childhood and then monitor their health and drinking over the rest of their lives. Since such studies cannot be done, researchers instead have to ask people about their drinking habits and follow them over much shorte…

Frustratingly, we came very close to getting a study that should have come pretty close to giving a conclusive answer to this. It was funded and approved and started. But then it was cancelled after people found out that the lead researcher lied about his ties to the alcohol industry: https://dynomight.net/alcohol-trial/

Re: Why many studies wrongly claim it's healthy to drink a little alcohol

#53

Post by IndySun »

This has popped up a lot this week. There are at least mental benefits to participating in group activities, some of which include alcohol, and of those that do the vast majority end peacefully with a fruitful, long, and happy life - devoid of any aliments listed. Human makeup is so much more complicated than saying alcohol has no health benefits.

Re: Why many studies wrongly claim it's healthy to drink a little alcohol

#54

Post by tomohawk »

Not a drinker. As a person who makes their living using their brain, it's never made sense to me to not protect an important asset. Over the years, most of my peers have stopped being able to do any sort of intensive brain work because of (a) drinking, (b) sugar, or (c) smoking or some other drug. Over the years, the decline in ability due to these things is obvious. I regularly outperform people 20 years younger than me because of poor lifestyle choices they're already making.

Society wise, alcohol is the the direct cause, or a major factor in heart disease, cancer, suicide, gun deaths, car deaths and injuries, etc.

Re: Why many studies wrongly claim it's healthy to drink a little alcohol

#55

Post by sandworm101 »

blackbrokkoli wrote: post #40
sandworm101 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but those populations are far from completely dry. They may drink less, but do not represent a scientific control group. If you did find a totally dry community, the other cultural differances may well muddy the results too (diet, relationship to medical care etc).

Do you have support for that claim? Large, large parts of the Islamic world are not westernized at all — I would be very surprised if rural Yemeni housewives or Socotran shepherds ever drink, or for that matter 99% of people in pre-tourist-visa Saudi. Hard agree on their being a myriad of confounding factors from genetics over climate and family relationships to diet, though...

Well, i have family connections to pre-visa middle eastern countries and yes, alcohol is a problem. Thats why they have the rule. Are drugs also not a problem also in many countries despite national bans? Remember too that about 30% of people in western nations are essentially dry (<2 drinks per year). So the asking questions approach has merit.

Re: Why many studies wrongly claim it's healthy to drink a little alcohol

#56

Post by bee_rider »

ImHereToVote wrote: post #29
pfdietz wrote: post #5

Ethanol is metabolized to acetaldehyde. Aldehydes form crosslinks between proteins and DNA (and DNA with itself). Inactivation of the aldehyde-metabolizing ALDH2 enzyme (which happens in 50% of East Asians) increases risk for various disorders including cancer and late-onset Alzheimer's. Cancers linked to alcohol use: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/risk-prevention/diet-physical-... The American Cancer Society recommen…

Acetaldehyde is also be metabolized by the brain for energy. May be why some people get so addicted.

That’s an interesting chemical.

One stereotype I’ve heard is that people quit drinking and then become addicted to coffee. Coffee apparently can have acetaldehyde in it.

Re: Why many studies wrongly claim it's healthy to drink a little alcohol

#57

Post by greentxt »

pfdietz wrote: post #36
silverquiet wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It clearly seems beneficial and/or enjoyable for some (not me so much), and tobacco and opiates seem like they do their fair share of damage as well.

Tobacco is estimated to cause more deaths, at least globally: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/substances-risk-factor-vs...

But probably has greater benefits too.

Re: Why many studies wrongly claim it's healthy to drink a little alcohol

#59

Post by n4r9 »

bee_rider wrote: post #41
supahfly_remix wrote: post #6

Have there been studies of nominally non-drinking sub-populations, such as Mormons or Muslims, to understand the effects of alcohol?

I imagine picking people from one particular religion or culture is bound to introduce statistical skews. Mormons do seem to skew toward abstinence from a lot of unhealthy habits, but the stereotype is that they drink a lot of soda, right? That’s bound to do something. Plus if a group has a strong stigma against alcohol you’ll probably get some members with an unusually high incentive to miss-report whether or not th…

> you’ll probably get some members with an unusually high incentive to miss-report whether or not they drink

As a former member of such a group, this is exactly right. Even if it's completely anonymous, there's a strong and absurd sense of "God is watching me fill out this form, better make myself look good".

Re: Why many studies wrongly claim it's healthy to drink a little alcohol

#60

Post by gus_massa »

davidhbolton wrote: post #42

This NS piece is complete misinformation. This below is by a writer who has been writing about this sort of thing for years. "Tim Stockwell has been up to his old tricks. In a study that was widely publicised this week despite being published in January, he claims - yet again - that moderate drinking does not confer health benefits. The study is largely a rehash of his meta-analysis from last year (which I wrote abou…

[I sugest to add a few > and * so it's easier to understand that most of ypur comment is a

> qoute

the " are difficult to notice.]

Post reply on HN