A brilliant excerpt from the end of the bbc article[0]:<p>Yet Prof David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk at the University of Cambridge, sounded a note of caution about the findings.<p>"Given the pleasure presumably associated with moderate drinking, claiming there is no 'safe' level does not seem an argument for abstention," he said.<p>"There is no safe level of driving, but the government does not recommend that people avoid driving.<p>"Come to think of it, there is no safe level of living, but nobody would recommend abstention."<p>[0]: <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-45283401" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-45283401</a>
The problem with this study is that all nutritional studies are unreliable, and the problem is getting worse.<p>> These implausible estimates of benefits or risks associated with diet probably reflect almost exclusively the magnitude of the cumulative biases in this type of research, with extensive residual confounding and selective reporting.3 Almost all nutritional variables are correlated with one another; thus, if one variable is causally related to health outcomes, many other variables will also yield significant associations in large enough data sets. With more research involving big data, almost all nutritional variables will be associated with almost all outcomes. Moreover, given the complicated associations of eating behaviors and patterns with many time-varying social and behavioral factors that also affect health, no currently available cohort includes sufficient information to address confounding in nutritional associations.<p><a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2698337?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social_jama&utm_term=1735239284&utm_content=followers-article_engagement-image_stock&utm_campaign=article_alert&linkId=55887642" rel="nofollow">https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2698337?ut...</a><p>Someone will come out two weeks from now and say booze makes you immortal.
I would like that people saw this as a reality check to another promoted narrative.<p>"Sometimes, beer loves us back too: Studies have suggested that, when consumed in moderation, beer has many health benefits." - <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/2010/01/15/healthy-beer-drinking.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.foxnews.com/story/2010/01/15/healthy-beer-drinkin...</a><p>"Despite the health benefits of moderate drinking, Holahan emphasizes the need for common sense. One or two drinks a day may be beneficial for some, but drinking a lot more can be dangerous, he said." - <a href="https://news.utexas.edu/2010/08/27/psychology_drinking" rel="nofollow">https://news.utexas.edu/2010/08/27/psychology_drinking</a><p>One in Five Americans Say Moderate Drinking Is Healthy - <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/184382/one-five-americans-say-moderate-drinking-healthy.aspx" rel="nofollow">https://news.gallup.com/poll/184382/one-five-americans-say-m...</a><p>So there is still people believing that alcohol may be healthy. It is good to understand that it is not. And that to decide to drink will have consequences.<p>I have seen an increase of availability of alcohol-free drinks for the past decade that allow you to hang out with your friends, keeping that very needed human contact, but allowing you to not suffer the adverse effects of alcohol and to drive safe home.
I think it's clear that alcohol consumption is a burden on society, but I think the headline exaggerates matters a bit. The relative risk is only 0.5% greater at one standard drink per day, relative to no alcohol consumption (see figure 5 in the paper.)
Having stopped drinking a bit over a year ago I'm curious if I'll actually recover from some of the damaging health effects or just not get any worse. I recall reading that for smoking your chance of dying returns to normal about 10 years after quitting but I'm not sure if there is similar research for drinking
> The three leading causes of attributable deaths in this age group were tuberculosis (1·4% [95% UI 1·0–1·7] of total deaths), road injuries (1·2% [0·7–1·9]), and self-harm (1·1% [0·6–1·5]).<p>TBC is still an infectious disease and road injuries are preventable by simply not driving after having had a drink and self-harm is rather unlikely after a bottle of beer.<p>> and the level of consumption that minimises health loss is zero.<p>That is a triviality. Alcohol has no health benefits.<p>---<p>Seems to me that it is okay to have a drink a day.
Coincidentally, I'm hoping to release a (simple) iOS app next week that will help keep your drinking under a preset weekly limit. Will automatically add your drinks as calories to HealthKit and pull recent check-ins from Untappd:<p><a href="https://i.imgur.com/MhJm6Si.png" rel="nofollow">https://i.imgur.com/MhJm6Si.png</a><p>As an avid craft beer fan, I've been trying to keep my drinking under 120g of pure alcohol a week (which is about 9 standard drinks) by way of a Calca spreadsheet over the past two years. It's been very effective, but a bit annoying to wrangle manually. Figured I'd finally turn it into an actual product.<p>I think I'll probably release the code under GPL.
I haven't read the study, but going by the reporting, they are conflating different statistics, those of the direct health impact of alcohol, and those of the 'behavioral' impact (which may then have health effects).<p>No doubt there is an increased risk of death, due to alcohol, through drunk-driving (either as perp or victim), street violence and so on.<p>But many of those problems stem from a small percentage of people, or the small percentage of occasions, when it is consumed in excess.<p>I think what people want to know are the direct <i>health</i> risks of alcohol, in various amounts.
This article is focused on average alcohol consumption. It only proves that if more alcohol is consumed there are more people who drink enough to have problems, not that <i>everyone</i> has problems.
One of the good points about alcohol (there aren't many):<p>It is a strong anxiolytic and is readily available 'over the counter' which means people can self-medicate themselves in times of crisis.<p>How many lives has that saved?<p>Most medical studies tell you significantly more about the prejudices of the authors and/or who paid for the study. This one seems no different in that regard.<p>I have an interest in the matter being an alcoholic myself.<p>A more interesting study would be on the degree of contempt we're held in by the medical profession at large.<p>RIP. Ian Murdock.
The 'findings' of this study are so convoluted it's obvious they have an agenda. Yes, alcohol can cause dangerous behaviour and social problems. This doesn't mean there isn't a safe level of consumption, safe meaning such that the alcoholic drink itself doesn't harm your body. Also funny that they mention alcohol can decrease the occurrence of certain heart diseases (one of the largest killers) but that doesn't mean it's safe because it increases the rate of certain cancers (which kill less people than heart disease) so the conclusion is that it's not safe.<p>Personally, I'll go with the fact that alcohol has been consumed for all of human history, the fact that many alcohol consuming cultures have longer life expectancy than some abstinent cultures (not proof in itself, but a 'good enough' observation for my own personal peace of mind), and the fact that I'd rather eat and drink well than gain what, an extra year or two of life? I'm healthy, not overweight, active, most of my ancestors in recent history lived to 90+ years old with sub-par diets and drinking habits, I'm not convinced ultra-healthy eating and abstinence is going to be worth the boredom.