
Effects of Initiating Moderate Alcohol Intake on Adults With Type 2 Diabetes [pdf] - gwern
http://www.equator-network.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/14-Gepner-Annals-2015-22.pdf
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montecarl
I really like this paper. Why? Because it is a randomized controlled trail.
There are not enough of these in the medical field. This is the gold standard
for scientific research. Unlike in the comment section of most health related
science articles, there will now be no discussion of "correlation is not
causation!!!" because the subjects were chosen at random. Additionally the
subjects were studied genetically and the results were used to divide the
results into two groups: those who metabolize alcohol quickly and slowly. This
allows for much more understandable results because it explains why the
treatment does not work in some cases or works well in others.

The results of the study are not earth shattering, however, it is able to come
to a much more firm conclusion that the typical epidemiological study that
relies on statistically examining the population at large. Those types of
studies are great for figuring out what to study next.

Notice some correlation (even corrected for all the biases that you could come
up with and measure) that people who eat more saturated fat have higher
chances of heart disease? Then do not change the diet recommendation for all
Americans. Instead, do a randomized controlled trail! Then make your
recommendations.

~~~
Darmani
I can't tell if this is sarcasm. RCTs are incredibly commonplace in medicine,
but they are hardly the only way to do causal inference. They are also
incredibly easy to make mistakes in; I'd more call them a bronze standard.

~~~
gwern
They're _not_ a commonplace in the eternal debate over whether moderate
alcohol is healthy or not, which is why this paper is so awesome.

The other ways to do causal inference are also much more unreliable; I'll take
a questionable RCT over a Mendelian randomization or regression-discontinuity
design any day.

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achow
Summary:

 _Initiating moderate wine intake, especially red wine, among well-controlled
diabetics as part of a healthy diet is apparently safe and modestly decreases
cardiometabolic risk. The genetic interactions suggest that ethanol plays an
important role in glucose metabolism, and red wine 's effects also involve
nonalcoholic constituents._

OP's link is giving me "Page not found" error. Alternate link:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26458258](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26458258)

~~~
gwern
Odd, it was working very recently. Here's another PDF link:
[http://hospitals.clalit.co.il/hospitals/soroka/he-
il/News/Do...](http://hospitals.clalit.co.il/hospitals/soroka/he-
il/News/Documents/%D7%A1%D7%95%D7%9B%D7%A8%D7%AA%20%D7%95%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%94%D7%95%D7%9C.pdf)

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MPSimmons
I got as far as "All groups followed a Mediterranean diet without caloric
restriction." and thought, "well, damn. It was such a nice idea."

Basically, to call the results of this "evidence" is pretty strong. I'm not
even a researcher and I can recognize that there's nothing in this. So many
uncontrolled variables.

