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Alcohol's Evaporating Health Benefits
New submitter Heart44 writes: A study in the British Medical Journal shows that consuming alcohol — any volume, any type — does not increase life expectancy. The full academic paper is not paywalled. From its conclusions: "Beneficial associations between low intensity alcohol consumption and all cause mortality may in part be attributable to inappropriate selection of a referent group and weak adjustment for confounders. Selection biases may also play a part." The associated editorial adds, "Firstly, in health as elsewhere, if something looks too good to be true, it should be treated with great caution. Secondly, health professionals should discourage suggestions that even low level alcohol use protects against cardiovascular disease and brings mortality benefits. Thirdly, health advice should come from health authorities, not from the alcohol industry, and, finally, the alcohol industry and its organizations should remove misleading references to health benefits from their information materials."
You are the greatest, did you know than man. I mean I really Reealy love you. Now what was this article about. Oh. To your heath! cheers.
Seriously, alchohol can creat fun opportunities to socialize and that's well known to be one of the singlemost important aspects of a healthy life. Or any life at all.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The real take home lesson for this is not to put much faith in any observational study. Such studies typically inflate the magnitude of the putative effect (both for 'good' and 'bad'), typically use inappropriate statistical methodology and suffer from various well known sources of bias (as noted in TFA).
Unfortunately, it makes progress in the medical field very slow and inconsistent since good studies are difficult to impossible to do. Basically, you're gonna die at some point. Within some broad levels of moderation, do what makes you happy. Imbibe what ever makes you feel good.
Don't sweat the details. Even though we live in a world with horrible chemicals, air pollution, endocrine disrupters, radiation, GMOs and PETA most of the Western world is living longer and healthier than ever. Not that there aren't problems with the world - presumably we can do better, but the constant drumbeat of falling skies can safely be ignored.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
So, the pendulum has finally swung back to center, where anyone with an ounce of intellect could have figured it belonged all along. Alcohol isn't "good for you", moderate consumption is neither good nor particularly bad, and overconsumption (as with most things) has consequences. Hysteria on both sides--prohibitionists and snake-oil peddlers--discredited.
Not surprised.
Scott
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
Eggs are bad for you! Eggs are good for you! Meat is bad for you! Meat is good for you! Alcohol is good for you! Alcohol isn't good for you!
I swear, if you listen to and heed all this advice you will go crazy. I think the best thing to do is ignore all this crap, eat *reasonably* (not too much of any one thing, have a balanced diet) and just ENJOY the things you like, regardless of people saying they're good or bad for you, because life is short anyway and we might as well enjoy it while we have it.
I see so many eating bland vegan diets, thinking it's so good for them; I doubt any of them will live longer than typical omnivores.
So if she drives a car, and is pulled over -- what then? Is she similarly not responsible for her actions? Or does alcohol's ability to invalidate someone's decision making ability only apply to sex?
One thing to keep in mind is this observation: There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Another is that we really don't know how the body works yet, as evidenced by the (still) constantly shifting winds around cholesterol, fats, vitamins, carbohydrates, breast milk, and so on.
It's also worth keeping in mind that a lot of "official information" (such as the food pyramid, almost anything at all related to the "drug war" and more) is utter nonsense cobbled up for reasons entirely unrelated to your well-being, or lack thereof, and that places ranging from GNC to Walmart have been caught red-handed selling what amounts to sawdust in bottles labeled as various herbs.
It seems to me that the appropriate behavior WRT one's health at this time is moderation in all consumables of interest, avoidance of things your taste or immune system makes clear to you aren't positive experiences for you, while only really staying clear of things that science has actually nailed to the wall as seriously harmful, such as cocaine, tobacco, meth, any addictive substances (there really aren't all that many of these, it isn't much of an inconvenience to avoid them even if you're into drugs as entertainment.) Pay attention to your body's response to things you ingest. It's a simple enough idea, but one a lot of people simply don't take seriously. Drinking enough to ruin your next morning? Might be an important message in that for you...
Get regular exercise -- I'm talking every day -- and don't sit at a desk (or anywhere else) for too long at any one time.
Couple all that with carefully avoiding the legal system (inasmuch as the government spends a great deal of effort trying to turn your personal choices into excuses for jailing you) and you might survive long enough to see science figure out how we actually work -- and I suspect that will arrive at nearly the same time as solutions for the various downsides of this and that.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.