
The Truth We Won't Admit: Drinking Is Healthy - jhonovich
http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/truth-wont-admit-drinking-healthy-87891/#.VAuTE5vDzjI.twitter
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davvid
The author has been funded in the past by the Distilled Spirits Council of the
United States (a trade organization) and the Wine Institute.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanton_Peele#Funding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanton_Peele#Funding)

This article makes it sound like there are no health concerns with regular
drinking.

~~~
towski
I would be more concerned with the mental health effects than the physical
health effects anyway.

~~~
clavalle
I would guess that you would find significant mental health benefits, as well.

~~~
spacehome
I wouldn't guess. I would look at research.

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clavalle
Oh? With what would you start your inquiry into the existing research? Would
that be a guess, would you suppose? Or is it hard data all the way down?

Even inquiries into research can contain bias. But your pithy attitude is
noted.

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jnbiche
What if a pharmaceutical company invented a pill that resulted in a modest but
significant reduction in the risk of heart disease in 90% of the population,
but resulted massive increase in the risk of premature mortality in 10% of the
population, easily shaving off 10-40 years in life expectancy in that 10%,
depending on the severity of their reaction to the drug.

The company could find absolutely no way to tell the two populations apart
prior to administering the pill. Most critically, once the 10% took the pill
for a short period of time, they almost always ended up suffering the adverse
effects.

Do you think the FDA would approve that pill? Do you think any sane doctor
would prescribe that pill to his/her patients?

So absolutely, if you are _sure_ you don't have any alcoholic tendencies (and
if you have to ask, you aren't sure), then drink a glass or two of red wine a
day (depending on your body mass). It will almost certainly improve your
cardiovascular health.

But don't expect medical or public health professionals to go singing its
praises from the rooftops to a partially at-risk population.

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csomar
Are you really sure about that? Do you know Isotretinoin? You may want to do a
little search about it. Look at the serious adverse effects and harms it cause
[0].

Despite that, a huge numbers of doctors (in many countries around the world)
do administer it. Why? Because it makes money for the pharmaceutical industry.

So the answer: Yes, the FDA will approve that magical pill.

*[0]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotretinoin#Adverse_effects](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotretinoin#Adverse_effects)

~~~
s9w
Criticizing Isotretinoin can only come from someone who doesn't understand
what big of a deal acne can be. That drug saves millions of human lives from
suicide.

~~~
x0x0
Millions of lives from suicide? Only ~800k people successfully commit suicide
annually, and somehow many people survived quite bad acne before this drug.

I'm not saying severe acne or associated scaring can't cause mental health
issues, but the list of side effects includes suicidal ideation, suicide,
birth defects (it's a teratogen), depression (notably at the rate of between
one in 1k and one in 10k), etc. This list [1] is quite extensive, and I'm glad
I didn't have to sit on the fda council that decided this list of side effects
was ok in a drug that, after all, just prevents some cosmetic scaring.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotretinoin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotretinoin)

------
_delirium
> If you don’t distinguish binge drinking from daily moderate drinking, that
> would be due to Americans’ addiction-phobia, which causes them to interpret
> any daily drinking as addictive.

This is a quite common attitude in northern Europe as well, or at least in the
Nordic countries. In Denmark it's highly suspicious to drink alcohol on a
weekday ( _especially_ at lunch), unless it's a holiday, and will lead people
to worry about alcoholism. But it's completely normal to have 6+ drinks on a
weekend evening. Maybe even _every_ weekend evening. You can binge-drink as
much as you want, as long as it's only Fri-Sat (sometimes Thu). In fact it's
even sort of expected; _not_ doing so might raise suspicions that you're some
kind of weird religious person (Mormon? Muslim?). Not sure how this arose, but
it seems to be the cultural norm: 14 drinks/wk spread out as 1 each with
lunch/dinner every day is seen as alcoholic, but the same 14 drinks/wk spread
out as 7 each on Fri/Sat evenings is culturally normal. Whereas in southern
Europe the opposite is more often true, at least traditionally, with weekend
binge-drinking seen as more questionable than moderate daily drinking.

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Stronico
Well, daily drinking is a good predictor - 100% of practicing alcoholics drink
every day after all.

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Retric
Plenty of alcoholics don't drink every day. It's a question of compulsive and
uncontrolled drinking not simply the frequency of drinking. A collage student
may destroy their health and social life though binge drinking while not being
able to afford drinking every day.

~~~
Stronico
Plenty of people with drinking problems don't drink every day - alcoholics,
which I would define as people addicted to alcohol do. If a person is addicted
to alcohol they will have pretty immediate adverse affects, i.e. the DTs,
which include shaking, hallucinations and seizures pretty rapidly with no
alcohol in their system.

~~~
Retric
Physical dependence != addiciton.

[http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/principles-drug-
addict...](http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/principles-drug-addiction-
treatment-research-based-guide-third-edition/frequently-asked-questions/there-
difference-between-physical-dependence)

Addiction often leads to physical dependence, but you can for example be a
light smoker that's addicted to nicotine. However, you generally need to be a
fairly heavy smoker before withdraw symptoms show up when you stop. On the
other hand people without addiction to caffeine will often display withdrawal
symptoms if they stop. This is vary common in people who enjoy soda or tea,
but don't use it to stay adjust alertness.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_dependence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_dependence)

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spacehome
> In fact, the evidence that abstinence from alcohol is a cause of heart
> disease and early death is irrefutable

I'm sorry, but the author drastically overstates the certainty of our current
knowledge. Every single piece of evidence he marshals is a study, not an
experiment, so who knows what the confounding factors are. And even worse, the
studies necessarily depend on self-reported alcohol consumption, which, as any
doctor knows, is basically just a bunch of lies.

There's a huge history of scientific consensuses being wrong, particularly
surrounding health in the last 30 years. I think we should be cautious about
jumping to conclusions of what these studies actually mean. That he calls his
hypothesis "irrefutable" is downright appalling.

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durakot
"The more alcohol a society consumes, the fewer alcohol-related problems and
alcohol-related deaths (including cirrhosis) it has."

Heh, what? Exhibit A: Russia. I'm all for copious drinking, but that's comedy.

~~~
readerrrr
Yep, pure comedy. Here are the facts; alcohol is among the largest preventable
causes of deaths, is connected to half of all violent crimes and about a third
of car related deaths.

[http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impai...](http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-
drv_factsheet.html)

~~~
spikels
The problem with those "connected" results is that alcohol is very popular so
a large fraction of any group has consummed alcohol recently. This is yet
another example of the divergence of causation and correlation.

If it is actually responsible for preventable deaths, why are they not being
prevented? Because they are probably very, very hard to actually prevent. Even
prohibition did little to reduce death rates and we already arrest 1.5 million
people in the US each year for driving under the influence. What would work? I
suggest the prevention of these deaths will have little to do with alcohol and
more to do with healthcare and perhaps automobile design.

~~~
readerrrr
_If it is actually responsible for preventable deaths, why are they not being
prevented?_

Because alcohol is the cause. I don't know what are you trying to say.

~~~
spikels
Sorry you don't understand - let me see if I can make it simpler for you. Your
alias (readerrr) gives me some pause that this will be successful. :)

If something is preventable that means it can be prevented. Right? So why is
it not be prevented? Understand? By this flawed logic aren't all murders and
suicides also preventable? This "preventable" label is bullshit.

I suggest that the vast majority these "alcohol related deaths" cannot be
prevented thought additional controls on alcohol. We tried prohibition -
didn't help. We arrest 1.5 million people every year - still these death
persist. Do you have some suggestions? I gave a few above.

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baking
I'm sorry, but when you see the huge drop from "none" to "less than daily" in
men you know there has to be something else going on there that only happens
to be correlated with alcohol consumption.

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leephillips
Why can't it be the alcohol?

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grizzkill
What if the people in the 'none' group can't drink because of a medical
condition? Many medical conditions are already associated with shortened life
spans, and alcohol often interferes with medication.

~~~
3pt14159
That was addressed in the article. They remove those people from the study!

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js2
I don't know a site that collects more research on the topic than
[http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol/AlcoholAndHealth.html](http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol/AlcoholAndHealth.html)

~~~
chriskanan
The evidence definitely seems to be converging on non-drinking as less healthy
than light or moderate drinking.

My question is, why does alcohol have these health benefits? Some earlier work
pointed to resveratrol in wine, but there is a lot of doubt that's been cast
on that hypothesis and the general benefits of alcohol seem to be agnostic
regarding the particular form of beverage.

~~~
Scoundreller
A whole pile of the studies are observational and not placebo-controlled, nor
randomized.

Therefore, other factors beyond the consumption itself can't be ruled out,
such as differences in education, religious beliefs, non-religious beliefs,
open-mindedness, etc.

Trying to answer the question of why alcohol clinically has the effects that
it does is a hard battle. The molecule has wide-ranging effects, it doesn't by
any means hit any particular receptor. It goes wherever water goes in the body
and disrupts every cell membrane in the body, among other effects.

And that's if the health benefits have anything to do with the clinical
effects at all.

~~~
Scoundreller
I wanted to clarify that alcohol does hit many receptors, but not only one or
two which would make studying it a lot easier.

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stretchwithme
Gingivitis is associated with heart disease. Is it possible alcohol could just
be killing bacteria enough to reduce the effect?

Instead of taking up alcohol, consider hitting those gums with an electric
toothbrush at least once a day.

~~~
Scoundreller
Associations don't imply causations. We don't know if gingivitis causes heart
disease, nor do we know if heart disease causes gingivitis. Or maybe each has
a minimal direct effect on the other (I'd never say none at all).

Likely, individuals that have/do things that prevent gingivitis, like
affording a dentist, also have/do things that prevent heart disease, like
affording blood pressure medications.

~~~
vixin
'Is it possible alcohol could just be killing bacteria enough to reduce the
effect?' Answer: 'yes it is possible'.

The strawman of 'association and causation' is introduced by you.
Congratulations on knocking it down!

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dang
[https://hn.algolia.com/?q=drinking+is+healthy#!/story/foreve...](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=drinking+is+healthy#!/story/forever/0/drinking%20is%20healthy)

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aaron695
As far as I'm concerned, this thread should be about the fact the government
and health care professionals are lying to us about the facts because they
think they know best.

Whether the advice is best for society or not doesn't matter, they are lying
to you. This concerns me a lot.

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m0skit0
I call bullshit. There's nothing in the while article that proves drinking is
healthy. The author heavily relies on the wrong logic of "correlation means
causality".

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gdonelli
Everything in moderation is good my grandma used to say...

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mprny
Smoking? :)

~~~
michaelbuddy
For cigarettes, if you dial back what you consider moderation to say, maybe a
cig or two socially every couple weeks, that would not likely be the thing
that killed you. there are smokers like that, they just have a couple at a
party, not very often. It's not something most people would do but there are
some out there that do.

~~~
seabrookmx
I'd say most cigar or pipe smokers I know are like this.

I think it's less common with cigarettes now for various reasons. The social
stigma, the fact that they are much more convenient, and that they deliver
their nicotine "hit" much faster, I would imagine makes them more addictive.

