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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

#951

Post by RobertRoberts »

wonderwonder wrote: post #334
RobertRoberts wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slippery slope. What happens when a drug addict looking his next fix attacks someone? This is why we have drug laws to start with, was to protect people. There are no simple answers here.

Have assaults gone up in the states where marijuana has been legalized?

I would argue that any drug that are depressants would have a different effect when high vs when the user is in withdrawl. Marijuana is considerably different than narcotics from my first hand experience/witness of it's effect on people.

Dope heads don't jones for their next hit. But I have seen a sweet young naive young teen turn into a mugger from meth.

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

#952

Post by [deleted] »

babyshake wrote: post #643
allturtles wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that if those things are unsafe, the term unsafe has no useful meaning, i.e. life is unsafe. It's a policy brief, not a medical brief, it is pro-abstinence and recommends a variety of alcohol control policies, short of actual prohibition: "- Call for strict regulation of alcohol products - Advocate for minimum pricing of alcohol products - Build capacity internally and among peers to promote cessation o…

At least death is safe. As in, dying will not increase your risk of death.

[deleted]

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

#953

Post by [deleted] »

tomtheelder wrote: post #800
dabbledash wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If time word “unsafe” means “carries more than zero risk” then it isn’t very useful to me to know whether a doctor considers something unsafe.

Yes, but it's useful to them. That's the point.

[deleted]

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

#954

Post by dahart »

lmm wrote: post #924
dahart wrote: post #886

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The actual topic of conversation underneath the smoke is the political neutrality of the CDC, and public mistrust of science and government funded sources of information. If you are really curious about the evidence, follow the thread up and click the links. I already posted links that have some stats and links to studies on the harms of second-hand smoke, and so did @dionidium too. :)

I didn't see anything in your links that addressed second-hand smoke specifically? I think there's a broad consensus that a) tobacco is a significant cause of premature death b) low outdoor air quality (e.g. high PM25) is a significant cause of premature death. But given that tobacco smoke does not show up in your link's list of major contributors to low outdoor air quality, that does not add up to a statement that s…

You’re talking about the WHO link specifically? You’re right, that link doesn’t mention secondhand smoke because it doesn’t have a list of major contributors (doesn’t mention cars or factories either). I’d agree it’s probably not a great example of what you’re asking about. I really only posted the WHO link because the WHO uses similar language to the CDC saying things like ‘there are no safe levels of exposure to pollution.’ Might not answer your question, but I think the WHO pollution guidelines published a few months are good reading (https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/345329).

To clarify what I was talking about above, I’m saying the close exposure to smokers is high in urban areas -- in proximity, frequency, and density. There’s also broad consensus that the risks and harms of secondhand smoke are greater in proportion to proximity of the smokers, and that downtown urban areas where people congregate have higher concentrations of cigarette smoke than other places. I’m not personally claiming that average Pm2.5 air quality over time sees a measurable impact from cigarettes. (Even if true, I would expect cigarettes are dwarfed by cars --- but 6 trillion cigarettes a year isn’t nothing, right?) I’m really primarily claiming that being in an urban area like a downtown city center is high exposure to secondhand smoke, being very close to smokers is often a many times per hour occurrence in busy urban areas, walking and entering/exiting buildings.

The CDC link does reference the Surgeon General’s report, which links to a whole pile of primary sources on secondhand smoke. You can also Google around for primary sources for links between smoking and general air pollution. I just tried and found a handful of papers studying outdoor smoke exposure levels, e.g., https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/48/3/918. The main consensus that I see is that for a range of small distances like 10-20 feet, outdoor exposure is plenty high enough to be very concerned about the risks, and that high traffic areas can collect smoke and increase exposure.

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

#955

Post by avar »

HWR_14 wrote: post #806
pvarangot wrote: post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it depends on how much you smoke and how much you travel. Thing is if I smoke even one cigarette like as a digestive after a big dinner once every four months I have to pay 600 dollars of extra health insurance per year because of how all this bullshit messaging about how nicotine works. And of course it's to protect something like only 35% of the human population that will get addicted to it. I stopped smoking…

> Thing is if I smoke even one cigarette like as a digestive after a big dinner once every four months I have to pay 600 dollars of extra health insurance per year because of how all this bullshit messaging about how nicotine works. Really? Where do you live? Because I'm not aware of any country that does this (other than with sin taxes on tobacco).

Health insurance in various places goes up if you consume tobacco products, and doesn't take the amount consumed into account:

https://www.kff.org/faqs/faqs-health-insurance-marketplace-a...

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

#956

Post by orwin »

seirl wrote: post #934
klabb3 wrote: post #915

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 socia…

The replication rate of Economics as a field is higher than replication rates for psychology, cancer research, pharmaceutical research, and many other fields. When was the last time you opened an econ journal?

0.1% of studies in the econ field are replication studies.

58% (quite high, higher than a lot of biology related field) are positive replications.

But! some of those use the same datasets, with different time bases, and most are narrow replication of high impact studies.

Also, economics now is not a singular field, and I'd bet gp was talking about macroeconomics. You could be more charitable.

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

#957

Post by quantgenius »

dionidium wrote: post #669
solox3 wrote: post #202

I am fine with abstinence as a general recommendation, but critical thinking pointed out two issues with the WHF Policy Brief, which I suppose I have read in sufficient depth: 1. There is no citation on the sentence, "Recent evidence has found that no level of alcohol consumption is safe for health." This is really the only line we are interested in. 2. There is no comparison on the effects of alcohol on the body by…

If you want to feel some dissonance about this, you might note that this is the exact language the CDC uses for things like secondhand smoke -- "There is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke" -- which everybody nods along to and accepts without much scrutiny. Source: https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/seco... Meanwhile, when it's something like, say, cosmic radiation exposure from c…

Smoking by a person may or may not create benefits for the person smoking. However, secondhand smoke creates no positives and significant net negatives (the smell, the accumulation of black deposits on clothes of things around you) for anyone who encounters it even if you ignore the health effects.

It can also create pretty serious immediate issues beyond just the long term problems for people with breathing issues like asthma or certain allergies. If smoking and second hand smoke were everywhere, like it was in 80s and early 90s in the US, and you were one of the fairly large percentage of the population with these issues, you basically couldn't go anywhere without risking your health.

If the second hand inhaler were a child, it's an even more serious problem. Nicotine is highly addictive and does a real number on your brain. It makes addicted smokers justify things to themselves due to the sheer physical need and you end up with parents smoking around young kids etc.

Even if you are a libertarian, you should support restrictions on smoking consistent with the principle that each of us has freedom but your freedom to swing your fist only extends as far as my nose.

Alcohol is a bit different. Unless the drinker starts behaving badly after drinking, or there are long term issues like alcoholism that affect the whole family, they are really only hurting themselves.

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

#958

Post by HWR_14 »

avar wrote: post #955
HWR_14 wrote: post #806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thing is if I smoke even one cigarette like as a digestive after a big dinner once every four months I have to pay 600 dollars of extra health insurance per year because of how all this bullshit messaging about how nicotine works. Really? Where do you live? Because I'm not aware of any country that does this (other than with sin taxes on tobacco).

Health insurance in various places goes up if you consume tobacco products, and doesn't take the amount consumed into account: https://www.kff.org/faqs/faqs-health-insurance-marketplace-a...

That's what I figured he was referring to, but you (and he, if that's what he meant) are just wrong. Your source points out that the amount consumed is taken into account:

https://www.kff.org/faqs/faqs-health-insurance-marketplace-a...

Now, it is binary. But US federal law puts "an afterdinner cigarette once every four months" very much in the "nonsmoker" category.

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

#959

Post by quantgenius »

dionidium wrote: post #813
dahart wrote: post #808

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no dissonance here, this is FUD. The language is wildly different because the actual risks are wildly different. One kills a lot of people and the other doesn’t. How many people are actually dying from air travel radiation? The numbers are low enough that they’re hard to find evidence for. Here’s a study, for example, that attempted to answer the question for pilots, who obviously fly frequently. They weren’…

First of all, this is a good and fair pushback. But I’d respond that I chose secondhand smoke for a reason. I similarly doubt there’s any measurable impact of being around a smoker every once in a while, but the language around secondhand smoke got more and more hysterical leading up to the widespread implementation of smoking bans, to the point that it’s not uncommon today to hear people complain that walking near a…

Walking near a smoker on a sidewalk outside IS a risk to my health and the health of my children. I have asthma as do my children. Both my children and I have had asthma attacks due to second hand smoke, even limited quantities. As a smoker you may not notice this but the smell from even a whiff of second hand smoke persists for a long time and it's awful. Our family gives smokers on the sidewalk a very wide berth.

Nobody gets to create a hazard to others walking on a sidewalk. If a business wanted to dispose of an equivalently toxic substance out in the open, they would be heavily fined and shut down. Why should smokers have a special right to do this and, incidentally, litter cigarette butts all over the place?

I'm extremely grateful to live in NYC where there is a (frequently violated but still) ban on smoking inside all public parks. I would absolutely support a sidewalk smoking ban and better enforcement of the ban on smoking in parks and within 25 feet of building entrances in NYC and limit smoking to private property with the smoker responsible for ensuring second hand smoke does not affect adjoining private property.

The primary difference between smoking and alcohol is that with alcohol, there is no equivalent to second hand smoke. When someone who drinks alcohol creates a negative externality for those around, they are ticketed or arrested depending on what they did, everything from drunk driving laws to drunken disorderly laws. I'd love to see a laws on the books similar to drunk driving laws that addressed the issue of smoking around minors.

Now if the CDC said there was no safe level of exposure to nicotine and so we should ban all nicotine gum, that would be absurd.

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

#960

Post by babypuncher »

wyclif wrote: post #790
idontwantthis wrote: post #778

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Secondhand smoke is the cost of being in a bar outside of the US. Good luck making friends with European expats without some secondhand smoke.

Used to be that bars were the place you went in the US to smoke and drink. Since you can't smoke in bars (Note: "pubs" for UK readers) anymore, there's less of a reason to go to them, and it incentivizes drinking at home. Which has led to a lot of bars closing and fewer of them than ever.

All the bars where I live seam busy as ever. I don't think smoking bans are hurting them at all.
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