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

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

#911

Post by enzino »

dahart wrote: post #910
enzino wrote: post #908

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, you mention beliefs, while the point was (is?) one of science. By the way, have you ever heard of banning coal BBQs? I'm not sure at all that the exposure is less severe. Say you are at a party, there's a BBQ 20ft away, and some annoying guy lights a cig 10ft away. I'd bet you money that the BBQ harms you more, or at least emits more than 4 times (you need to scale by the square, diffusion of a fluid) PM2.5…

Yes, I mentioned beliefs and was admitting that some of the behavior you saw might be based more on human beliefs than science. It wouldn’t be the first time it ever happened, right? ;) I have heard of banning coal BBQs. I’m sure you’re absolutely right that the instantaneous exposure per second can be worse if you’re close and downwind from one than a cigarette from the same distance. But how often do you go to a pa…

I was referring to a specific situation (a university campus) that already banned smoking from all indoor areas, and all outdoor areas within 100ft from buildings (could have been 200, I don't remember). The question was whether to ban it everywhere. That scene I used of the party was very accurate, you'd have about 1 in 20 people who smoked. You'd not bump into smokers in any other settings, basically. (You'd maybe see a random smoker smoking on their own far away from buildings.) This was early 2010s at a west coast university.

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

#912

Post by enzino »

dahart wrote: post #910
enzino wrote: post #908

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, you mention beliefs, while the point was (is?) one of science. By the way, have you ever heard of banning coal BBQs? I'm not sure at all that the exposure is less severe. Say you are at a party, there's a BBQ 20ft away, and some annoying guy lights a cig 10ft away. I'd bet you money that the BBQ harms you more, or at least emits more than 4 times (you need to scale by the square, diffusion of a fluid) PM2.5…

Yes, I mentioned beliefs and was admitting that some of the behavior you saw might be based more on human beliefs than science. It wouldn’t be the first time it ever happened, right? ;) I have heard of banning coal BBQs. I’m sure you’re absolutely right that the instantaneous exposure per second can be worse if you’re close and downwind from one than a cigarette from the same distance. But how often do you go to a pa…

Also, you don't need to be downwind from the BBQ. It's a point emission of fluid (particulate). It diffuses. The intensity scales with the square of the distance. (Same exact process as the cigarette smoke.)

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

#913

Post by haroldp »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #614
boomboomsubban wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why am I forced to choose any or just one? Why do you think alcohol does less harm then any of the others? Currently far, far more children die due to alcohol than the others, and while that's definitely due to availability it's not obvious that wouldn't still be the case if all were legal.

> Why do you think alcohol does less harm then any of the others? A simple test, give each to a baby/small child and see what happens... I lived in a time where babies were given tiny amounts of alcohol for pain relief and it did no harm that I ever heard. I doubt you can say the same for meth.

You are mistaken. Vast numbers of American teens are prescribed amphetamines every day. The main difference between elicit recreational methamphetamine use and medical/psychological amphetamine use is circumstances and dosing. Kids on Ritalin are generally in safe situations where they have consulted a psychologist with the involvement of their parents, and are given a pure, unadulterated, small, carefully dosed amount of amphetamines. Meth addicts are typically people with more serious mental issues and in precarious situations, given massive and uncertain doses of unpure, perhaps adulterated amphetamines.

The disparate outcomes of those groups are much more about the dosage and the personal/social situation.

Pharmacologically, they are pretty much the same drug.

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

#914

Post by kaba0 »

slingnow wrote: post #732
kaba0 wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can choose to take a flight or consume alcohol, but I can’t choose to not breathe while you smoke next to me. There is no need to look for conspiracy theories as homework.

In case you missed it, the claim has nothing to do with choice -- it has to do with making a blanket, absolute statement for one thing and a more nuanced statement for another. I guess you're exactly the person these types of statements were meant to placate.

As a public statement, mathematical existence of risk may, if small enough, can very well be said to be non-existing. For all practical purposes, is a 1e-10 risk contain any sort of information for the average people? Is it lying to call it risk-free? I really don’t think so, human language is not exact - in the real world nothing would be risk-free otherwise, essentially we would loose that word.

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

#915

Post by klabb3 »

psyklic wrote: post #792
hcurtiss wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Precaution comes at a price. The question is whether the benefits of the precaution outweigh the costs. And that is an answer science cannot, and should not, answer. These days, it seems, many scientists are desperate to cloak their policy preferences in "science." That is precisely why there is presently so much distrust of scientists.

I never understood distrust, because scientists base their work on research that is extensively cited. Making conclusions that are not supported by evidence, e.g. "desperately cloaking" policy preferences, could jeopardize one's scientific career. Many people seem to unrealistically demand scientific recommendations to be "guarantees." However, scientific conclusions are very precisely made best guesses, built on hum…

> I never understood distrust, because scientists base their work on research that is extensively cited.

It's good that the supply chain of science is traceable, but it doesn't guarantee truth by any means. Their are many non-scientific human endeavors that have traceability, take software development for instance.

I think the distrust comes from many fields having fairly obvious political trends, in particular social sciences. Another source of distrust is overextrapolation of science by authorities. For instance, science might say that certain drugs are harmful if abused, and politicians may use that to claim the war on drugs is based on science, which obviously is not true. Lastly, some fields struggle producing consistent and falsifiable results, such as economics and psychology.

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

#916

Post by klabb3 »

azth wrote: post #787
zarzavat wrote: post #763

My favourite quote on the matter: But claiming there is no ‘safe’ level does not seem an argument for abstention. There is no safe level of driving, but government do not recommend that people avoid driving. Come to think of it, there is no safe level of living, but nobody would recommend abstention. https://medium.com/wintoncentre/the-risks-of-alcohol-again-2... I understand why they want to dispel the persistent my…

> But claiming there is no ‘safe’ level does not seem an argument for abstention. There is no safe level of driving, but government do not recommend that people avoid driving. False equivalence. Drinking is not necessary for life (and it's harmful as we see here), but driving is required for many people's livelihood.

Yet, the government does not recommend against non-essential driving. So yes, you're technically right it's a false equivalence, but one can easily modify the scenario to make it a fair comparison.

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

#917

Post by estaseuropano »

vanusa wrote: post #844
nuclearnice1 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To point 1. In the brief I find at the red download link [1] contains the line “ Based on recent evidence, it has been concluded that there is “no safe level of alcohol consumption”(5).” The reference points to an article from The Lancet [2] [1] https://world-heart-federation.org/wp-content/uploads/WHF-Po... [2] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

“Based on recent evidence, it has been concluded that there is “no safe level of alcohol consumption”(5) Which definitely takes artistic license with what the cited article actually said, which was: Our results show that the safest level of drinking is none. Which is exactly like saying "The safest level of poppy seed consumption is none". Which of course completely dodges the question you'd really want to ask which…

I don't think that misstates the lancet article, and i also think this information in the lancet article is useful.

There is a long belief that e.g. red wine is good for the heart, or in many places there are some herb liquors that old people drink thinking it will bring them benefits. Here the lancet unequivocally states that to our best evidence no alcohol is best. You're from now on not drinking red wine for your heart but for pleasure.

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

#918

Post by floatingatoll »

netizen-936824 wrote: post #617
floatingatoll wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is absolutely acceptable to knowingly exchange damage to body for healing to mind, and vice versa as well. But I still appreciate that science is gradually making clear that alcohol is not perfectly harmless, and that a large-scale health foundation is finally admitting that.

The mind is part of the body Also contrary to popular belief, alcohol does not heal or help the mind unless perhaps you have methanol poisoning or are in the middle of a panic attack

Okay, fine. It’s acceptable to damage the body to heal the body.

For example, exercise, where you damaging muscle fibers to heal, maintain, and/or improve the body.

Also for example, intoxication, by virtually every vector known to exist, often damaging the body in order to maintain the body.

Being alive is about tradeoffs, not about minmaxing. You can max out any statistic, but only at the cost of the others — sanity included. Alternately, being alive is about the exquisite joy of minmaxing, being able to hyper focus on one specific body goal at the cost of everything else in your life, including sanity (if you’re not careful).

“I’m sane without intoxicants”: so no nature, no music, no games, no social joy, then.

For example, this is either a description of an acid trip or of someone listening to orchestral music on the radio:

“It was so amazing. I’ve never felt so alive. It was, like, there was a train running through the mountains, and my room was one of the train cars, and I could see it right there, and I just stared at the wall for like half an hour and enjoyed the ride.”

I find it simpler to discuss mind and body in separate terms since people have trouble seeing transcendent experiences as intoxicants, but I hope this use of your terms helps clarify my viewpoint.

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

#920

Post by dataengineer56 »

floatingatoll wrote: post #552
f38zf5vdt wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another article from The Lancet from around the same time reported a whopping... 6 months of life expectancy reduction when consuming 100-200g of alcohol a week versus 0-100g of alcohol a week. [1, Figure 4] A drink is 14 grams of alcohol, so that means that your risk from consuming 150 grams, or over 10 drinks a week, is still relatively low in terms of all-cause mortality. Figure 1 also shows that consumption of 0-…

It is absolutely acceptable to knowingly exchange damage to body for healing to mind, and vice versa as well. But I still appreciate that science is gradually making clear that alcohol is not perfectly harmless, and that a large-scale health foundation is finally admitting that.

This is a dangerous statement! Alcohol is not good for the mind, even in small amounts. I feel like a cloud has been lifted since I stopped drinking.

I strongly recommend everyone read Allen Carr's Stop Drinking Now (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stop-Drinking-Now-Allen-Carrs/dp/18...) - a fantastic book in which the author logically argues why every perceived positive of drinking is actually a negative.

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