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Alcohol Causes One In 20 Deaths Worldwide, Says WHO (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Alcohol is responsible for more than 5% of all deaths worldwide, or around 3 million a year, new figures have revealed. The data, part of a report from the World Health Organization, shows that about 2.3 million of those deaths in 2016 were of men, and that almost 29% of all alcohol-caused deaths were down to injuries -- including traffic accidents and suicide. The report, which comes out every four years, reveals the continued impact of alcohol on public health around the world, and highlights that the young bear the brunt: 13.5% of deaths among people in their 20s are linked to booze, with alcohol responsible for 7.2% of premature deaths overall. It also stresses that harm from drinking is greater among poorer consumers than wealthier ones. While the proportion of deaths worldwide that have been linked to alcohol has fallen to 5.3% since 2012, when the figure was at 5.9%, experts say the findings make for sobering reading.
the rate of death attributed to alcohol has been falling since 2012. Sounds like a better trend to me.
Hmmmmm.
95% chance you won't die from alcohol.
The glass may be half empty but the bottle is half full.
What? Alcohol causes more deaths than firearms?!
Well, there's one way to fix that - ban alcohol! Make it illegal, and alcohol-related deaths should pretty much stop happening.
What could possibly go wrong?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Alcohol may cause 1 in 20 deaths, but it probably play a part in about 1 in 20 conceptions, so overall its a zero-sum game
To be fair, it is the number one way to screw up your life. And if not the number one, it's in the top two. This drug is widely available, people self-medicate with it because it has social blessing, it's advertised everywhere and yes, there's even a word for abusing it that's in common parlance -- alcoholism. It's not just the deaths it's the messed second, third and fourth order consequences.
Let me give a simple example: alcohol abuse makes you a lousy parent.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
List of causes of death by rate
I think that there are more pressing causes of death, which might increase the need for a drink.
Undid some funny moderation, because I think there are a couple of people worldwide who like to use every opportunity to ban alcohol, even though it is not really a leading cause of death worldwide.
It's a poor mechanism for population control. It kills those in their 20s disproportionately often. This means the resources used to raise and educate these people are wasted since they died before they could make a sufficient contribution. A more cost efficient mechanism would target those past retirement or the very young or ideally prevent conception in the first place. As others have pointed out, alcohol may even increase the number of unplanned pregnancies, making the overpopulation problem worse.
I would argue that alcohol is the best socialising drug on the planet. See how unrelaxed societies are in which alcohol is banned. So, how many wars have been prevented because the opposing leaders had some drinks together? :)
What I learned today from Slashdot: human beings have no free will, but a molecule can be deemed "responsible".
probably a better way than being an intern for the WHO tho, but its ok, they promise to stop treating their interns like cattle by 2020.
It kills those in their 20s disproportionately often because those in their 20s tend to die rarely from cardiac arrest, cancer or a stroke.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The number one way to screw up your life is having sex. From STDs to pregnancies to rape allegations...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
For more drunk women! Nerds wanna score, too!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And yet 19 out of 20 people manage to live responsibly and not kill themselves. Did anybody question how many of those people enjoy a little alcohol in moderation without becoming fuckwits?
It's basically pointing out that some people can't control themselves, and that some people are just fucking awful parents who failed to introduce their offspring to drinking, partying and enjoying life in a controlled manner, leaving them to "break free" and binge out, to their own detriment.
Why blame the alcohol? Oh right, cos nobody wants to ever have to have personal responsibility. It must be something else what caused it sir.
I'm sure the overall effect is positive.
I don't doubt this is a major factor but it doesn't invalidate the point. The base rate for death is senescence related and we should compare to the base rate.
True and what percentage of alcohol users is it, out of all the people who drink in moderation and don't abuse it?
It's hardly a complete study,
If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.
Let's say for whatever reason, opium and alcohol switch places historically and instead of alcohol being the dominant legal drug, opium derivatives become legal.
Like alcohol, the dominant forms of opiates that remain legal are low-concentrate varieties, such as smoking opium or low-strength tinctures -- in the same way that beer and wine are popular, although like spirits, morphine or heroin also exist, but are consumed mostly diluted cocktail style. For the most part, opium is sold in regulated stores and always in well-known concentrations by a well-regulated industry.
Society has recognized for centuries the problems of opium use, but as its deeply ingrained in culture only the US ever tried to ban it during Prohibition which was a complete failure. Alcohol is seen as much worse, and society is presently engaged in a "alcohol crisis" fueled by over-prescription of therapeutic alcohol and black-market alcohol which is tainted.
Would we more or less be in the same place we are now, kind of turning a blind eye to the dangers of opium -- relying mostly on the culturally ingrained "rules" for to not overdose regularly?
It seems to me that most people ignore the large-scale problems with alcohol availability and despite cultural acceptance it's probably way more dangerous than we ever consider. Millions of people are alcoholics and millions more are borderline functional alcoholics and there are vast social problems associated with alcohol, like drunk driving, violence, domestic abuse, etc.
I think there have been attempts to quantify the risks associated with the various varieties of psychoactive substances and almost always alcohol and tobacco come out 1 or 2 with opiates further down the list maybe behind barbiturates, which society mostly has avoided as a long-term crisis or black market drug.
The latter is kind of interesting considering the popularity of Seconal and Quaaludes in the late 1960s and 1970s -- it's somewhat surprising that with the surge in illciit lab-made fentanyl and other "research chemicals" that there hasn't been a parallel surge in illicit lab-made Quaaludes or Seconal.
This article is poorly titled. It should probably be, "Alcohol Abuse Causes 1 In 20 Deaths." Just about anything out there has the potential to be misused and abused.
If we blame alcohol, we can raise the taxes on it. If we blame their behaviour then what can we do? Trying to change their behaviour costs the tax payer money whereas raising taxes on alcoholic drinks brings in tax revenue.
Eliminating factors that taint the result is crucial. Else bullshit like "people lived healthier lives in the past because way fewer died of cancer" becomes fashionable. Yes, fewer people died of cancer in medieval times, but mostly because other diseases that we have eliminated today got them first.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If paying for it bothers you, well you're going to pay for it anyways in societal costs. More health care, more law enforcement involvement, more broken homes. If you're sole metric is taxes, then you really are missing the bigger picture.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Well, I remember when I was in my teens and 20s, I died from alcohol every weekend at least twice. (Living in the EU, so nothing illegal)
So that might influence the numbers a bit.
Now I die every weekend from cardiac arrest because of the fact that my kids behave like I used to do. So that influences the numbers also a bit.
The stroke is the cause of the little death or La petite mort. That has not changed that much over the years. (Or what stroke where you talking about?
I am litteraly dying.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
so they rolled in the suicide stats if there was a bottle nearby at time of death?
fishy! junk science! fake news!
Since when does alcohol cause suicide?
And as most of the world has socialized healthcare of some kind, it is an expensive form of population control. Other conspiracy theories float the rise in cancer and cheap high-saturated fat foods as methods of killing off the old who have outlived their usefulness, but when you look at the cost of cancer treatments and survived heart attacks, it doesn't look so good. Even the US has medicare for the elderly, it's not really helping anyone to kill them off in any of these ways.
It's probably just people making bad decisions, evidenced most by the relatively high number of young people affected.
The leading cause of death, is being born.
*ducks*
Germany will not like the oktoberfest buzzkill!
Life is reason for 10 of 10 deaths. Stop life and nobody needs to die anymore.
What? Alcohol causes more deaths than firearms?!
Duh. People have greater access to alcohol so this should surprise no one. That said it depends on exactly when you measure it. During a war firearms clearly are the bigger danger. Also I'm not especially worried about someone pointing a beer at me even if they are angry.
Well, there's one way to fix that - ban alcohol! Make it illegal, and alcohol-related deaths should pretty much stop happening.
Comparing regulation of a mild recreational drug to regulation of a purpose built weapon is a fairly ridiculous comparison. That said there is plenty of evidence that prohibition did have positive effects regarding mortality despite arguably being bad policy. Likewise regulation of firearms in countries that took the matter seriously has been shown to reduce mortality from firearms. Again it might or might not be good policy but it does have a measurable effect on mortality rates.
I agree with this however it does not address my point. The comparison I am making is between a world with and without alcohol abuse. Call them A and B respectively. Consider in both cases the 'age of death' distribution. In A, there is a higher proportion dying for those in their 20s compared to B. For clarity, I am not making a comparison between A and C, a world where the other diseases do not exist, since this is the wrong base rate. We get the result in part because alcohol is less of an 'old people cause of death' than competing causes of death. I could make the same point with 'death by unbiased lottery'. Since it does not discriminate by age like most fatal diseases, it would be a poor means of population control compared to the existing population control. As before I'm using the word 'poor' with regard to economic prosperity not morality.
Actually, being a faggot would eliminate one of the potential problems.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
More people would get older without alcohol. Ok. But take a look at the population pyramid of your country and ask yourself whether you'd really want that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
i'm not saying paying for it bothers me. I'm answering the question 'Why blame alcohol?' If the question was 'Why blame free will?', I'd have given a different answer. To do this I looked at it from the point of view of those who are in a position to effect change. Higher alcohol taxes deter heavy drinking and are easy to implement. They also mean lower taxes elsewhere or more money to spend elsewhere. It's easier, cheaper and less effort for a government to do this than run education programs or advertising campaigns. If we make alcohol the villain, it's easier to spin higher taxes on alcohol. This is a reason to blame alcohol for anyone who supports this approach to the problem.
Alcohol is responsible for more than 5% of all deaths worldwide, or around 3 million a year, new figures have revealed
I think I speak for everyone when I say "WHO cares?".
Don't worry, I'll see myself out
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Overpopulation is a leading cause of global warming
Those in their 20s also tend to take more risks than their elders, and don't yet recognize when they're too drunk to be doing that, leading to stupid stunts and drunk driving.
My original post in this thread was about controlling the population pyramid. I already pointed out the value in population control after retirement in this first post. The rest of our discussion came from my concern that twenty-something is too early to die because it hurts the population pyramid, being a productive age with many productive years still head.
This was the original submission:
Alcohol Causes One In 20 Deaths Worldwide-Says who?
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Not only that, alcohol doesn't drink itself. It's not responsible for ANYTHING!
Alcohol consumers, using bad judgement, are the responsible parties with respect to the deaths cited.
You sir must learn to subscribe to the proper victimhood mentality, this is 2108 after all. We can't have people thinking and taking responsibility for themselves. Your vote entitles you to be absolved from such burdensome things. Indeed, many inanimate objects are to blame for your actions. And if that doesn't quite fly, then try blaming society as a failed collective system.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
From "The Young Man in Business", Edward W. Bok (c. 1896)
"If he be wise he will entirely avoid the use of liquors. If the
question of harm done by intoxicating liquor is an open one, the
question of the actual good derived from it is not."
..and it's not necessarily having to do with your health. Seriously, the W.H.O. comes off as more of a political activist organization than it does anything else, they just leverage health issues to further their overall agenda. Not interested in anyone telling me how I should live my life.
The number one way to screw up your life is having sex. From STDs to pregnancies to rape allegations...
You missed: children.
"Oh no... he found the
Indirectly. A lot fewer people of both sexes would be able to get laid if it wasnâ(TM)t for alcohol, and not just due to its intoxicating effects, but also due to the social mingling opportunities that alcohol has been enabling for thousands of years.
Just in case a friend needs it : Alcoholics Anonymous.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
It drives me nuts when journalists don't provide a link to the actual report. The methodology involved is vitally important to determine if it's believable or not. Also, what's the peer review process from a WHO study? Is there any?
These are the sorts of questions good journalism should be providing. Something entirely lacking in the article.
Yeah, they don't mean official cause of death, they mean cases where removing alcohol from the equation would have prevented death.
In your DUI example, if the driver wasn't drunk, then he'd have a low probability of crashing so there's a high probability it's a 'cause' by this definition. If instead we remove the car from the equation, then it'd just be drunken fool sat on the ground, steering an imaginary wheel, making car noises, so the car is a 'cause' as well by this definition. His limbs are also a cause. If we'd cut them off, then he'd not have been able to drive, and so on.
Rather than argue in favour of mutilation, etc., they've decided drinking responsibly is a solution to enough problems that it's worth highlighting, and they've chosen to do so with a relaxed attitude toward the meanings of words and phrases.
Than a Frontal Lobotomy!
Now that pot is available legally one way or another in almost every state, this will go down fast.
Sorry, Iâ(TM)m confused. What are you saying isnâ(TM)t illegal or immoral? If you mean shoving your Genetalia into someone elseâ(TM)s face without their consent, thatâ(TM)s definitely both illegal and immoral. What else could you possibly mean?
Cars kill more people.
Most deaths from alcohol are caused by cars.
It's like blaming alcohol for all the deaths caused by tanks. The tank fired the weapons, the amount of alcohol imbibed is only a contributing factor. Or like blaming the need to use lungs to breathe when it's the smoke that's killing you.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
and hippies. There's multiple and well sourced quotes from Nixon talking about it. And plenty of discussion around how Marijuana policy was used to get rid of Mexican temp workers once the growing season was over. This is why a rich white guy pulled over with some pot goes to drug rehab and a poor black guy jail.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Never mind, in other /. news Microsoft, Google and Facebook kill 9/10.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Nixon definitely did weaponize drug policy as a tool for dealing with his enemies -- hippies, left-wing types and minorities.
My problem is that I don't think drug policy really changed all that much when this happened, the only real difference was that post 1960s there were just a LOT more ordinary white people doing drugs, mostly marijuana.
But before that, drug policy had historically been used to suppress minorities too -- Chinese, Blacks, Mexicans. Sure, Nixon made it worse but it wasn't like it was great before that. In many ways, I think what Nixon made worse was not the racist aspect of it, but the concentration of authority and creating the DEA, making anti-drugs much more of an intensive effort.
this is 2108 after all.Â
I've noticed that time seems to go by faster the older I get, but damn it feels like 2018 was just yesterday. Where did I the last 90 years go?
Uhh... they perfected suspended animation in 2037 ..? whoops!
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Yes, fewer people died of cancer in medieval times, but mostly because other diseases that we have eliminated today got them first.
That and almost no ability to perform any diagnosis other than palpation of tumours close to the surface, or ones that were visible to the naked eye (melanomas and such). But then any cancers that werediagnosed would never be effectively treated anyway.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
To be fair, it is the number one way to screw up your life. And if not the number one, it's in the top two.
That's a statement that would need some backup, I think. People screw up their lives in a nearly infinite number of ways, of which alcohol is obviously one. They also gamble, shoot at each other, fight, become addicted to any number of things (not all of which are considered "drugs"). They might even just be a bit lazy, which you might consider a life "screwed up", if you consider wasted potential a screw-up.
But the thing is, we're all adults here. It would be nice to be treated like one, for a change. Where I live, I can't even walk down the street in town holding a drink without breaking the law. There's no evidence that I've seen that demonstrates that this law does anything positive for society at all.
Well, one thing to avoid is doing it in Sweden...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Children are the later stages of pregnancies.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This part above just reminds me of something from when I was much younger. For about a year or so I worked in a warehouse doing general labor crap. A few of the guys and I would go out and have a few drinks every Friday at the bar down the road. We only ever went for an hour or so as just sort of a cool down and hang out at the end of the week. Some would have money issues and excuse themselves from several of the hang outs, even though others would offer to buy a drink or two just to have the hang out time.
Then there would be 1 or 2 that were struggling to pay rent, fill their car with gas, etc.... and they'd finally get a break, or work overtime. Suddenly they'd go out and buy expensive drinks, appetizers, dessert, etc... and the next week complain about money again. I never understand the choices people make about money.
Alcohol Causes One In 20 Deaths Worldwide, Says WHO
Alcohol CAUSES? Really?! I could believe that alcohol was a factor, but not a cause. It is like the drunk driving statistics. Person A hits and kills person B. Person C was a drunk passenger in Person B's car... and THAT is counted as a Drunk Driving death.
Just fucking stop with the agendas already. All these bullshit claims do is give a reason to people to act irrational. Just stop.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
You were just blackout drunk.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I've gone on some benders in my day, but 90 years. That's gotta be a record. Certainly my personal best.