
NIH Courted Alcohol Industry to Fund Study on Benefits of Moderate Drinking - KKKKkkkk1
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/health/nih-alcohol-study-liquor-industry.html
======
Alex3917
For what it's worth, some links to how funding sources affect clinical trial
outcomes:

[http://www.alexkrupp.com/Citevault.html#drug-company-
funding...](http://www.alexkrupp.com/Citevault.html#drug-company-funding-and-
research-outcomes)

My guess is that the best ways to reduce the risk of heart disease, normalized
for effort, are getting a couple HEPA filters for your house and getting
blackout curtains to improve sleep quality. Diet, exercise, meditation, etc.,
are obviously more effective, but also require actual effort, whereas with
these interventions you just pay the couple hundred bucks and you're done.

~~~
mrfusion
Why hepa filters?

~~~
sjg007
My guess is to filter out as many of the pollutants you possibly can. Newer
houses are full of them since everything is made in China and off gassing. You
also have external air which is full of diesel and gas emissions not to
mention pesticides and everything else. The only thing you need to do though
is make sure your HVAC can support it. Otherwise you run the risk of burning
out the motors. Air pollution and radon are risks for lung cancer.

~~~
ams6110
HEPA filters are for particulates. They won't do much about gasses such as
formaldehyde or radon.

~~~
Alex3917
Most air purifiers with HEPA filters also have plasma generators to reduce
VOCs. Whether it's a good idea to leave them running when you're in the room
probably depends on how much you trust them not to be generate appreciable
amounts of ozone.

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tabeth
This should shock no one. Health wise, alcohol is bad for you. Period. However
the potential decrease in loneliness and potential resulting friendships may
negate the health negatives somewhat. However the increased likelihood of
injuring yourself and/or others with too much consumption may negate that, and
so forth.

This is exactly why it's difficult to properly control for the supposed
_moderate_ drinking that's "healthy". Sooo many ways to explain why "moderate"
drinkers are healthier:

1\. Maybe they're a self selected group of people who can properly moderate
usage of something that's bad in order to get the benefits, in this case,
friendships and social activity.

2\. Maybe drinking is bad and moderate drinkers know it. Therefore moderate
drinkers intentionally moderate their drinking and overcompensate in other
miscellaneous healthy activity.

etc etc etc

~~~
rsync
"This should shock no one. Health wise, alcohol is bad for you. Period."

...

"Sooo many ways to explain why "moderate" drinkers are healthier ..."

I have this silly idea that drinking, which is bad for you, in moderation,
_actually exercises_ the processing and filtering mechanisms (liver, kidney,
etc.) that are required to deal with it.

Which is to say, imagine you never drank alcohol - how healthy (or "fit")
would those mechanisms be ?

I have no idea if there is any validity to this thought but I find the idea to
be interesting.

~~~
jstarfish
I don't know if you're right or not.

I suspect the basis for your theory is the idea behind inoculation. However,
the purpose of the kidney and liver are to serve as filters for toxins. In any
other context, filters don't get stronger with use, they _degrade_ with use.
The more crap you shove through it, the faster it degrades. How often do you
have to change your car's air/fuel filters, or your HVAC filter? How often do
you have to change them when you abuse them by living in a dusty climate?

Thus, my own (unqualified) take on it is that these organs can only handle a
finite amount of filtration before they simply fail.

~~~
phyller
Your argument could also be used for exercise, that lifting weights should
make you weaker, not stronger. Bearings and rubber bands wear out with use.

The distinction should be between living and nonliving systems. Living systems
are frequently designed to strengthen things that are under stress. This is
why working out makes you stronger; compressing, even breaking a bone can make
it heal stronger. And why we build up tolerances to things. Our biological
filters work with specialized proteins, our body can learn to express certain
proteins more in response to stress. Perhaps that includes the ones involved
in filtering?

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forapurpose
Stepping back and looking at a broader trend: As government is cut back, we
shift power into the hands of the wealthy, individuals and corporations.
There's sort of a law of preservation of political power: Cutting government
doesn't reduce the amount of power out there, it just gets democratic
government out of the way so that other powerful people can seize the power.

That doesn't mean we should always expand government; government has other
drawbacks. But there are trade-offs that should be considered: some things
should be controlled democratically, rather than by the powerful. The purpose
of democracy is to distribute that power equally to everyone.

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warmcat
As long as science continues to be funded by corporations, we will always have
this problem of getting results biased towards the corporations. I wonder what
else can be used to fund scientific research if not the government?

~~~
kovek
I've seen that people start off gofundme's or the like when they need some
financial support with an urgent unexpected issue. People are happy to help
and contribute, sometimes even if they are complete strangers. I've read
someone say it was because people want to know who is getting their support.
Maybe if it was possible to easily support research similarly, then people
might pitch in?

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dannyw
Early stage research still costs a lot of money. You won’t raise $200k from a
bunch of individuals like a go fund me; and individuals are probably not the
best at judging the impact and merit of proposals.

We need an overhaul of the way research is funded, but I don’t think asking
everyday individuals to fund is the right way.

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DenisM
I can’t wait for the cult of alcohol to go the way of the cult of tobacco.
Away.

The ads of yore about “most doctors prefer Camel” look alien today, yet the
“moderate drinking is helpful” stuff is still with us.

~~~
bobx11
I agree. Personal experience is that even moderate drinking causes poorer
sleep and mental performance but can only be observed after you have been
clean of alcohol for months. After you are in the habit of drinking multiple
times per week you can not compare your state to the baseline of non drinking.
I ran into this by accident when training for a race and did not believe it
when people told me.

~~~
DenisM
Right on!

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alexandercrohde
Just to make super explicit why this isn't even a little bit okay, there's a
very sordid history of corporations influencing research (even federal
research).

Before lead was put into gasoline two health studies were conducted by the
government, but the relevant industries (including DuPont) had influence over
the research. Both studies found leaded gasoline was totally safe. Low and
behold it reduced the IQ of an entire generation around 3 points (best
estimate).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead)

\---

Obviously alcohol isn't as damning as lead, but if funded research can declare
lead safe it seems like it could conclude anything.

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dominotw
So none of these studies can be read and reviewed on their own without knowing
who is behind the study. How can a supplement company ever do a study on it's
efficacy if it's going to get shot down because they sponsored it.

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jstarfish
They don't. It's a conflict of interest. You don't get to have a stake in your
own investigation.

~~~
md224
But then what do they do? Cross their fingers and wait for some random
researchers to take an interest in their product? Sure, if the product becomes
popular then it might attract research, but what if barely anyone tries your
product because there's no research on it? Am I missing something or is this a
catch-22?

I used to think it was corrupt for companies to sponsor research on their own
products. Then one day it occurred to me: who else is going to care about a
product (especially one that's relatively unknown) more than the company
trying to sell it?

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RandomInteger4
What was the last supplement you saw that was patentable?

Supplements in general are vaguely effective and mostly unpatented, meaning
that the only incentive for a supplement company to perform "research" is for
the purpose of marketing that they have some sort of research, but it's
against the law for them to say that their supplements do anything specific
outside the vague "bone health" etc. claims.

Don't get me wrong, I take various supplements daily, but I'm also fully aware
of how sketchy this industry is, especially where there are herbal supplements
that were out there found not to contain any genetic material of the herbs the
bottle was advertising.

~~~
md224
That's true, but I intended my comment to apply more generally to products of
any kind. I'll reword it.

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everdev
Shouldn't it be required to list funding sources on research?

It's surprising that I still see studies about the benefits of wine,
chocolate, coffee, or basically any other vice as being healthy and life
extending.

It's not surprising that these studies are often funded by the industries
themselves without mentioning it as a disclosure in the research or in the
articles promoting the research.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I have a serious medical condition. I found that a particular brand of salt
was very beneficial. I became an affiliate and had ads on my health blog for
that brand of salt. People accused me of having a conflict of interest and
just trying to make money off of sick people.

I am very leery of medical advice where I know doctors are basically there to
prescribe drugs and surgeries when I know from experience I can get better
results from diet and lifestyle. But talking about that is a huge shitshow.
Most people don't want to hear that.

I don't know how to solve this. The money needs to come from somewhere, but
the minute money is involved, no one trusts what you say and it seems to not
matter the order in which that association happens. Being a believer in the
product because it worked for you and trying to make money on something you
believe in makes you one of those MLM people in the minds of a lot of people.

~~~
Spooky23
If you don't want to be accused of being a shill, don't shill.

~~~
DoreenMichele
What I want is to share useful information with people who have largely been
failed by conventional medicine and also somehow pay my bills. I have
literally given away information for free for years. I have also been very
poor for years. These two facts are not unrelated.

Doctors are not somehow above having a conflict of interest. One cancer
doctor* went to prison for his heinous treatment of patients for personal
profit, some of whom never actually had cancer.

This isn't some problem unique to me or unique to people who aren't medical
professionals. The entire health industry has a problem here.

Also, that's a personal attack and violates HN guidelines.

* [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/07/10/cancer...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/07/10/cancer-doctor-sentenced-years-horrific-fraud/29996107/)

~~~
Spooky23
I’m sorry you feel attacked.

After watching a friend suffer, I feel a visceral negative reaction to
peddling dietary supplements alongside medicalish advice.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I wasn't peddling dietary supplements. I was recommending a particular brand
of sea salt. Salt is not a supplement. It's a normal part of the diet.

There is research showing people with my condition who surf have a better
prognosis. This research is respected enough it led to the creation of a
prescription treatment where people inhale nebulized salt water. I think
that's a silly conclusion and a more logical one is that sea salt is
beneficial. I also recommend people like me simply go to the beach whenever
possible and/or live near the coast because this is known to help.

I'm sorry for your suffering, but the problem here is that people are
suffering horribly and dying from my condition and there is no path forward
for helping them. Meanwhile, drugs are being developed that cost $300k
annually and help only 5 percent of the population but I am evil incarnate and
viciously attacked on a regular basis for a. Saying "I did X and it helped me"
and b. Trying to find some means -- any means -- to monetize my writing on any
subject, whether health related or not, so I can take better care of myself
and stop being desperately poor.

I blog. The information is free. It isn't framed as medical advice. And when I
criticize conventional medicine and how it gets monetized, I also get attacked
for that, a thing that happened just today in a different discussion in HN.
There is zero logical consistency here. The thing that is consistent boils
down to prejudice.

I have thought a great deal about this problem space and how to monetize it.
And I cannot think of a good path forward. Trying to make money off of helping
people with their health is just inherently problematic. Period. Whether you
decide to become a medical professional or not.

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JumpCrisscross
This is a problem:

“The presentations gave the alcohol industry an opportunity to preview the
trial design and vet the investigators. Indeed, the scientist leading the
meetings was eventually chosen to head the huge clinical trial.“

Which is unfortunate because “though excessive drinking is harmful and problem
drinking is on the rise in the United States, many observational studies have
found that moderate drinkers outlive abstainers and have less heart disease.”

~~~
jjeaff
There is also a problem with that. Essentially 100% of alcoholics started out
as moderate drinkers.

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mistersquid
Another problem is that many abstainers might already be at risk for either
having once been problem drinkers or avoiding alcohol due to adverse reaction
to alcohol.

In other words, moderate drinkers may be a self-selecting group for people
with good health.

~~~
always_good
Maybe people who can moderate a vice like alcohol also make other healthy
decisions in life.

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PakG1
This is interesting because there are some interesting research signals
recently that indicate that alcohol may cause cancer. Something like this may
be a preemptive PR war strategy.

[https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/diet-physical-
ac...](https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/diet-physical-
activity/alcohol-use-and-cancer.html)

~~~
DanBC
These aren't signals, we've known for some time that alcohol both causes
various cancers, and makes some other cancer spread faster.

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dpwm
This sounds more like a problem with the perceived quality of health research
than anything else.

Given that the healthcare industry and the alcohol industry are fairly good
sources of revenue, does anybody have an argument for why we should really
expect a different outcome if this was funded by and influenced by federal
government?

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osrec
When I told a friend of mine, a very well respected surgeon in the UK, that I
don't drink at all, he told me that I should, and that a glass of wine is good
for you. Thankfully I had come across a journal which refuted that very claim
about wine just a few days prior, so could offer a solid basis for my
abstinence (as a non drinker, you are often under pressure to do so!). What
surprised me was that a medical professional (specialising in the liver, no
less) was happy to disseminate this information, believing it to be true.
Clearly the marketing/propaganda campaign has been exceptionally effective in
putting across their false rhetoric, having convinced even an individual that
probably sees empirical evidence to the contrary during his day job!

~~~
dartdartdart
Link please

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onetimemanytime
300 million people, $19 Trillion economy, $4 TRILLION budget and we cannot pay
$10 million a year ($100m for 10 yrs) for an independent study for something
that affects the lives of maybe 100 million Americans. Something wrong?

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jack9
Alcoholic drinks (not just casual content like vanilla extract) have been
consumed by humans for millions of years. To put it in perspective, milk has
been consumed by humans for less than 10000 years. It would be unsurprising
that there might be some evolutionary selection that benefits people who
consume some alcohol. I find this specific topic interesting, given my
observations about patterns in my adult friends (when they started and stopped
drinking, when they started and stopped working out, when they have kids,
etc).

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erazor42
Humans does not exists for millions of years. ~200k years more or less.

~~~
akvadrako
Well even monkeys get drunk.

