Reply to Why do you drink alcohol?

Forum Index » Health and Medicine

Reply to "Why do you drink alcohol?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am optimizing the quality of my life, not the quantity. Fine wines add immeasurably to that quality. It also enhances socialization, which is extremely beneficial for health and happiness.[/quote]

smoking is also fun and looks cool... it would enhance my life a ton if it was consequence free. But it's not. :(

grow up[/quote]

I did smoke for a few years, but gave it up 30 years ago when I realized that the risk/reward ratio was so unfavorable. The risk/reward ratio with alcohol is very different. There are cardiovascular benefits from moderate drinking that partially offset the cancer risk. And, as I mentioned, the social benefits are huge. Many of the best times of my life have involved alcohol, and I wouldn’t trade that for a few more years of life (if that is even the trade-off - bear in mind that moderate drinkers outlive non-drinkers significantly. It is only when you start controlling for a lot of other factors that you can produce a result showing the harmful impact).[/quote]

The research is new enough and still developing so you can't possibly say with any confidence what the real risk/rewards are. But we do know that the previous surgeon general was planning on adding cigarette style cancer warnings to booze and Trump killed it, and now his administration is trying to pull a study linking booze to breast cancer, in favor of an industry backed study finding that alcohol has cardiovascular benefits. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/health/alcohol-drinking-hhs-report.html

Remember, the studies that find it has cardiovascular benefits are almost all backed by the industry. The research that is coming out is pretty consistent that cancer risk is real and claims of cardiovascular benefits are shaky. It's also notable that the definition of "moderate drinking" that *MAY* have a cardiovascular benefit (though again, stressing that seems less likely) is set at 2 drinks a day for men, and one for women, and even without discussing the cancer issue, there was a push from the scientific end of the conversation that it should be lowered to 1 for men and less than 1 for women (industry pushed back on those changes).

So, if there's any cardiovascular benefit, it's might be found in women who have less than a drink a day. Not exactly social lubrication levels of drinking, more like a small glass of wine with dinner, a few times a week.

If you're genuinely interested (and you should be since you seem interested in your health) read more about it: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/03/health/alcohol-surgeon-general-warning.html

"There is no question that heavy consumption is harmful. But supporters of moderate drinking — including makers of wine, beer and spirits, and some physicians and scientists — argue that a little alcohol each day may reduce cardiovascular disease, the No. 1 killer in the United States.

Newer scientific studies have criticized the methodology of earlier studies, however, and have challenged that view, which was once a consensus.

While most cancer deaths occur at drinking levels that exceed the current recommended dietary guidelines, the risk for cancers of the breast, the mouth and the throat may rise with consumption of as little as one drink a day, or even less, Dr. Murthy said on Friday.

Overall, one of every six breast cancer cases is attributable to alcohol consumption, Dr. Murthy said. More recent studies have also linked moderate alcohol consumption to certain forms of heart disease, including atrial fibrillation, a heart arrhythmia."[/quote]

Here is a fact for you : moderate drinkers live, on average, longer than never-drinkers. So it is not simply an artifact of people giving up alcohol for health reasons.

Now, it may be true that if you control for enough other factors you can still tease out enough harm that on net it is negative, but it clearly indicates that the negative impact of moderate alcohol consumption is not huge.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics