

Why Alcohol Is Good for You - subbu
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/09/why-alcohol-is-good-for-you/

======
jseifer
Summary: the author of the article speculates that moderate alcohol
consumption leads people to socialize and not be lonely. People who are lonely
are more likely to die from "just about everything." There's no actual study
done here -- the author only references other studies. This article is about
the author's hypothesis.

~~~
andre3k1
This article, similar to "The Web Is Dead", is about nothing more than link
baiting. Wired has been going down hill as of late.

~~~
kiba
How do you measure that rate of "becoming worse"?

~~~
falsestprophet
with careful consideration and scientific rigor, I'm sure

------
retube
"But here’s the really weird data point: Heavy drinkers also live longer than
abstainers."

Really? Really? I don't believe it. I'd like to look more closely at the data
that supports this. And it depends on the definition of "heavy" drinking. If
it's a regular one glass a day, sure. If it's a bottle a gin a couple of times
a week I would beg to differ.

Alcohol is insanely destructive. Whilst no doubt this study is picking up on
correlations between lifestyle characteristics which would explain these
results, there's no doubt that booze is bad for you. It rots your brain,
wrecks your liver, makes you depressed and makes you violent.

It's mental that for £20 I can pop into any off-licence, corner shop or
supermarket in the land and buy enough alcohol to literally kill myself. It's
a factor in 100s of thousands of deaths a year (UK) via heart disease, liver
cirrhosis, car accidents or violence. It costs the NHS and police forces 10s
of billions of pounds a year. It turns town-centres into virtual no-go areas
on the weekend. It ruins lives.

Yet for some reason not only is it legal, it occupies a cherished position in
our culture.

Edit: just to clarify, i'm not a prohibitionist. I think alcohol _should_ be
legal. Personally I love booze and having a few. But our stance on alcohol
versus our stance on other drugs (pot, coke etc) is just utterly illogical,
non-sensical, even I would argue, immoral.

~~~
brownleej
The full study is available online, and is linked to in the article. Their
definition of "heavy drinking" seems to be more than three drinks per day,
which seems like a reasonable definition to me.

~~~
hugh3
The problem with that definition is that it still lumps modestly-heavy
drinkers (two small beers after work, two glasses of wine with dinner) with
_really_ heavy drinkers (guzzle whisky until you pass out every afternoon).

If you plotted "health problems" vs "amount drunk" you'd probably see a fairly
flattish curve from zero up to some level, combined with a sudden increase at
very high levels of consumption. The "heavy drinking" number you're getting
here is going to be a section of the flat curve combined with a section of the
sudden increase, so the number you're getting doesn't tell you much.

------
tfh
Correlation does not strictly mean causation. Our statistics professor brought
this example once, he explained it that people who don't drink (in a western
society) have often problems with their health or are taking medication.
Statistics could be often misleading.

Another example was that people with bigger feet were more likely to be earn
more money. Guess why?

~~~
travisp
While true, it's not just correlation that alcohol may be good for you.
There's growing evidence that, among other things, alcohol boosts your HDL
(good) cholesterol. For one _controlled_ study see:

<http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/102/19/2347>

The conclusion from the controlled study?

"Alcohol intake increases HDL-C in a dose-dependent fashion, associated with
and possibly caused by an increase in the TR of HDL apolipoproteins apoA-I and
-II."

Of course, this is different from the author's hypotheses about socializing
and loneliness, something much harder to test.

~~~
carbocation
But now we are several steps removed from the outcome of interest. We can
postulate the following:

EtOH -> higher HDL -> increased reverse cholesterol transport (or another HDL
function) -> reduced risk of cardiovascular disease.

But there is a problem here. While higher HDL epidemiologically correlates
with reduced CVD, the only clinical trial of a drug that purely raises HDL
showed increased mortality. Now, the trial was complicated by off-target
effects of the drug, but my point is that we actually do not know if raising
"good" cholesterol is good!

~~~
tshtf
Doesn't niacin reduce mortality?

~~~
carbocation
Yes, but it is not a pure HDL modifier: it also reduces LDL-C, so it is not
clear which effect leads to niacin's benefits (both could, to be fair).

------
zach
So the referenced study prompts a basic but hopefully interesting question
about statistics and epidemiology which I hope someone could answer. When they
controlled for former problem drinking status and medical status (among other
factors), there was a major change in abstainers from 200% increased mortality
over moderate drinkers to 51%. So it seems like current abstainers included a
significantly death-prone cohort who were former problem drinkers and/or in
poor health.

Okay, so that makes me wonder what the difference is between controlling for
major factors and simply excluding the cohort with factors having that very
significant impact on mortality. My question is, at what point should one
correct for major factors and at what point is it appropriate to completely
segregate the data? What if the size of the group with major factors excluded
would be statistically insignificant (i.e. heavy drinkers who have never been
problem drinkers)?

------
etal
Complete abstinence from alcohol is also correlated with lower education level
and poverty. People with less certainty and control over their lives are more
likely to distrust alcohol, justifiably -- the risk that comes with it is more
serious for them.

~~~
retube
Hmm, I'm quite surprised. For sure, high levels of alcoholism are correlated
with poverty and lack of education. Random study:

"In the weighted model, a one-unit increase in neighborhood poverty at the
prior examination was associated with a 86% increase in the odds of binging"

[http://journals.lww.com/epidem/Abstract/2010/07000/The_Relat...](http://journals.lww.com/epidem/Abstract/2010/07000/The_Relationship_Between_Neighborhood_Poverty_and.10.aspx)

Anecdotally, all the cases of alcohol abuse I hear about tend to be in
disadvantaged homes.

~~~
stavrianos
Homes might be disadvantaged by the presence of an alcoholic. A friend of mine
came from a home like this- her father spent truly stupendous amounts on
alcohol. There was never enough money afterwards.

------
vishaldpatel
A thought about "having more friends". People like people who are like them.
Since most people drink, you are more likely to have friends if you do.

------
randallsquared
Since I've taken up light drinking almost entirely for the health benefits,
and since I don't drink socially, I hope this hypothesis isn't really the
answer. The other day when a co-worker was trying to get me to go to a scotch
tasting, he said, "What, do you only drink at home, alone, in the dark?!" I
replied that it wasn't _usually_ dark... :)

~~~
Psyonic
Even if your focus is health, why does it always have to be at home, alone?

~~~
randallsquared
It doesn't have to be -- my co-worker was successful at getting me to agree to
go out with the group -- but typically, if I'm around more than a couple
people with whom I'm expected to interact, I'm not going to be having fun, so
why waste alcohol on that situation? With lowered inhibitions, I might
actually _announce_ that I'm not having fun. :)

------
dooshydoo
These studies that whet the appetite for 'sin secrets' are entertaining, but
that's about it. I favor reductionism. Maybe it's not forced brain evolution
or African-plain-life recreation. Maybe it's because when you drink you tend
to eat less, which is, good.

~~~
billswift
The only inherent advantage in eating less is getting fewer calories; alcohol
has a substantial number of calories itself, so no benefit there.

~~~
hugh3
Also, I think that studies (and my own experience) have shown that alcohol
increases the amount you eat anyway.

------
yosho
if alcohol drinkers are happier people, and happier people live longer...

does that mean people who have a lot of good sex live longer too? I bet they
do!

------
antirez
Great article. Now it's time to go out at the local bar to have a few beers
with my friends :)

------
weston
I'd drink to this.

