
Is ‘moderate drinking’ really good for the heart? - hachiya
http://www.drbriffa.com/2010/12/30/is-moderate-drinking-really-good-for-the-heart/
======
JofArnold
To my knowledge the graph of "health benefits" versus alcohol is highest for
people who drink the most, of course, but also has a noteworthy increase for
people who drink zero. During a discussion with some sedentary behaviour
researchers we speculated the lower end of the graph is less so do with the
alcohol itself but rather the personalities associated with the different
consumptions levels:

\- Zero alcohol group; likely to contain above-average numbers of people who
are strict on themselves, and thus more likely to be stressed often

\- Medium alcohol group; likely to contain above-average numbers of people who
enjoy relaxing

\- High alcohol group; a high alcohol intake is bad for your health and is
likely to include above-average numbers of people with a poor quality of life

I know of no medical evidence to specifically back up that idea, but there is
a lot of evidence to suggest that worrying less about things can yield
improvements in health.

So in conclusion whilst the "eat and drink" bit of "eat, drink and be merry"
might be debatable, the "be merry" bit is definitely good advice. HAPPY NEW
YEAR HACKER NEWS!!!

:)

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SmokenJoe
Note this is not based on clinical research but likely a survey of surveys. It
is the least reliable form of research the point is not to come to conclusions
but to question the methodology of the original study and suggest
improvements. I don't have easy acess to the article at home but it is highly
unlikely the article would approve of the conclusions in the article.

Cardiac health is just one of the possible factors increasing life span. There
is no way to factor out the root cause this way. You need a control.

I will warn about alcohol and tylinol use together somehow this is not well
known it may be very very dangerous together. Tylinol is so common it was hard
to spot the combined risks.

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nhangen
There's evidence on both sides, but I'll say this...it's good for the soul,
and if it's good for the soul, then it can't be half bad.

~~~
rmc
_There's evidence on both sides_

This is usually a phrase that's used to shut down scientific research.
Although one can find evidence for almost everything, it's entirely
permissable, and good to try to balance up all the evidence and figure out
which side is more correct.

~~~
masomenos
Not necessarily. It can also indicate that we don't really understand a
phenomenon, which can be a very valuable observation.

Certainly better than assuming we know something to be true that later turns
out to be unsupported, eg. high fat diets causing to high fat humans.

~~~
shasta
There are good points on both sides of this argument.

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axiom
This makes complete sense. However, something tells me this article will get
about 1% the amount of press that the original "drinking makes you live
longer!" story did.

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solipsist
I always wonder what are the causes and what are the effects in studies like
this one and the ones that say drinking is healthy. Is it possible that those
who lead healthier lives are therefore mentally able to resist from drinking,
and not the other way around as this study shows? The same applies to the
studies that say those who drink a little are healthier than those who don't.
As JofArnold said in another comment here, those who don't drink at all may
only be less healthy because they are the people who are likely to stress over
things.

I'm sure the scientists conducting these studies try to eliminate these
inconsistencies to as much as their ability by establishing the cause-effect
relationship, but it seems impossible to do this exactly right and thus we
should consider the associated problems in studies like these.

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bufordtwain
Lies, damned lies, and medical science:
[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-
dam...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-
and-medical-science/8269/)

------
araneae
From first principles, it wouldn't make sense for alcohol itself to be
beneficial. After all, the body treats it like poison, the liver filtering it
from the blood stream. Drink too much poison, and the liver gets tired and
shuts down, and then you have liver failure.

But there are some compounds in some kinds of alcoholic beverages, mostly red
wine, that are thought to be beneficial. Of course, you could get the same
benefits by skipping the fermentation process and just drinking grape juice.

~~~
electromagnetic
Until very recently the only way to get truly safe drinking water was through
one of two ways. #1 by boiling water and #2 by fermenting grains and fruits
mixed with water to create alcohol.

Like the old wives tale says, a glass of wine with dinner will stop you
getting food poisoning. And research has been proving this for a while:
[http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/HealthIssues/1110384069.htm...](http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/HealthIssues/1110384069.html)
(It's a far better read than the NYT article it takes from with more
citations)

Considering that 30% of the population annually considers themselves to have
suffered food poisoning, that's quite the statistic and as most people confuse
food poisoning symptoms with flu symptoms it could easily be far higher. Given
that wine is of high enough proof to be potentially effective when consumed in
any quantity with food that it has far ranging benefits far beyond just what's
in it.

If you ate something with a deadly E. Coli strain, you'd probably be kicking
yourself in the ass if you drank grape juice over red wine. Not to mention the
potential risk you face from food poisoning through tainted juice.

~~~
araneae
A) This is entirely irrelevant to my point. The point was, the body takes in
things it finds useful, and discards the ones it doesn't. Ethanol gets
filtered out. And it's rough on your organs if it has to do it too often.
Those are the first principles.

B) The whole "wine as a replacement for water" thing is bullshit. Alcohol is a
diuretic; when you drink wine, your net hydration is negative.

C) Tainted juice is a non-issue if it's fresh; fruit is one of the safer
things you can eat, especially vine fruits, since they don't contact the
ground much. If it's spoiled juice... after a certain point it's alcoholic.
Ethanol is the by-product of spoilage in grape juice.

D) It's possible that alcohol in conjunction with food reduces contaminants in
the food, but I find it highly unlikely this is the reason people started to
and continue to drink; it seems that getting buzzed is the more plausible
explanation.

------
joe_the_user
I'd read this objection to the standard results previously - that the non-
drinkers measured were former alcoholics. The following study claimed to get a
similar result while controlling for this:

Mainstream press: [http://singularityhub.com/2010/09/02/heavy-drinkers-
outlive-...](http://singularityhub.com/2010/09/02/heavy-drinkers-outlive-non-
drinkers-longevity-never-tasted-so-good/)

Direct link to abstract:
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-0277.2010....](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-0277.2010.01286.x/abstract)

I posted this to HN a few months ago...

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drndown2007
I recall reading that the original study indicating red wine was good for the
heart was based on studies of a chemical in the wine which was given to rats
as part of the study. To get the same amount the rats got, and assumably the
same benefit, you'd have to drink a ridiculous amount (1000's of gallons a
year IIRC).

~~~
Bud
That'd be resveratrol. There are now various supplements on the market so that
you can get the dosage that is alleged to be helpful.

Also, resveratrol is not the only substance in red wine that is alleged to be
helpful. Another is, of course, alcohol...jury is still out on whether low-
dose alcohol can help cardiovascular health in the long term.

~~~
zoomzoom
I just wonder about the true purity of the supplements. Also, other related
chemicals in the wine that increase resveratrol's impact.

------
olalonde
It seems for every nutrition study out there, you can find another one that
will say the exact opposite. My 2011 resolution is to skip nutrition advice
altogether.

~~~
JofArnold
I used to think this, but in the last year I've seen that the science isn't
really so ambiguous. The /reporting/ of it is total chaos though. Which is
what you'd expect given the various different stakeholders in the food
industry.

~~~
enjo
Much like this article right? The article simply brought to light a study that
says "previous studies suffer from a bias". The study did not appear to say
"alcohol is bad for the heart" or that those studies drew incorrect
conclusions. Simply that future work should really take this into account.

That's important, because work needs to be done to identify other lifestyle
habits that tend to be present in lifelong-teetotalers, but not in the
drinking group. I think it's entirely reasonable to think that folks who
abstain from alcohol over the course of a lifetime probably have a lot of
other habits that are a bit healthier as well.

So I think it's important to note that this article drew very little in the
way of conclusions, but I get the feeling that folks are going to take it and
run with it anyways.

~~~
JofArnold
Is the nature of the beast; I guess epidemiological studies are hardest to get
right and yet the easiest for which to collect data...

