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posted by chromas on Saturday August 25 2018, @04:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the this-news-is-terrible-and-I'm-gonna-need-a-drink dept.

No alcohol safe to drink, global study confirms

A large new global study published in the Lancet has confirmed previous research which has shown that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. The researchers admit moderate drinking may protect against heart disease but found that the risk of cancer and other diseases outweighs these protections. A study author said its findings were the most significant to date because of the range of factors considered.

The Global Burden of Disease [open, DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31310-2] [DX] study looked at levels of alcohol use and its health effects in 195 countries, including the UK, between 1990 and 2016.

Analysing data from 15 to 95-year-olds, the researchers compared people who did not drink at all with those who had one alcoholic drink a day. They found that out of 100,000 non-drinkers, 914 would develop an alcohol-related health problem such as cancer or suffer an injury. But an extra four people would be affected if they drank one alcoholic drink a day. For people who had two alcoholic drinks a day, 63 more developed a condition within a year and for those who consumed five drinks every day, there was an increase of 338 people, who developed a health problem.

One of the study authors, Prof Sonia Saxena, a researcher at Imperial College London and a practising GP, said: "One drink a day does represent a small increased risk, but adjust that to the UK population as a whole and it represents a far bigger number, and most people are not drinking just one drink a day."

Related: The Truth We Won't Admit: Drinking is Healthy
Study Shows 3 Drinks a Day May Cause Liver Cancer
Even Moderate Drinking Linked to a Decline in Brain Health
American Society of Clinical Oncology: Alcohol Use Increases Risk of Cancer


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday August 25 2018, @04:29PM (11 children)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Saturday August 25 2018, @04:29PM (#726254) Journal

    From the end of TFA:

    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.

    "Given the pleasure presumably associated with moderate drinking, claiming there is no 'safe' level does not seem an argument for abstention," he said.

    "There is no safe level of driving, but the government does not recommend that people avoid driving.

    "Come to think of it, there is no safe level of living, but nobody would recommend abstention."

    Exactly. I personally have always been skeptical of findings that alcohol is actually "protective" from a health perspective, but I've also been skeptical of extremist studies that claim any alcohol is evil and will kill you tomorrow.

    Instead, it's likely a lot of this has to do with confounding factors. Those who have a glass of wine with dinner every day are likely a little more well-off and tend to live a bit more relaxed and less stressful lifestyle (compared to those who can't drink with dinner because they need to work or whatever afterward or those who can't afford it). Yes, studies try to control for such things sometimes, but it's hard to eliminate such lifestyle effects completely.

    Anyhow, it might be doubtful that the alcohol has a significant protective health benefits -- and figuring out another way to live with less stress could have a similar health benefit.

    That's just one of many things that could be going in the thousands of studies that have been done on alchohol consumption. People who are happy do tend to live longer, and people who have less stress definitely live longer. Did this study account for this in the "one drink a day" sample? Did they ask how many of that group found a drink "relaxing" or gave pleasure to their life?

    Everyone has different priorities. I should be clear that I personally don't drink very often at all, so I'm not defending alchohol. But for someone who enjoys it, it might actually have an indirect positive impact on health... Which might be hard to quantify.

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @04:53PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @04:53PM (#726259)

    Government is allowed to be the one organisation in society that can imposed its will at gunpoint.

    When you put such an organisation in control of your health care, then that organisation is guaranteed assert itself over your lifestyle.

    One drink a day does represent a small increased risk, but adjust that to the UK population as a whole and it represents a far bigger number

    Statistics. How do they work?

    Despite the mathematical stupidity of that comment, it just proves the point: When government is involved in health care, then the individual's lifestyle must be sacrificed for the good of the collective.

    Given a choice, I'll take a Free Society over a "healthy" society.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @07:10PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @07:10PM (#726310)

      when you get a license to get married the products of that marriage (children) are the property of the state. the parent(or guardian) is entrusted/used by the state to provide housing for their slave. the state provides the education/indoctrination so that the child grows to be a productive and well behaved slave wherever it is most profitable (prison). IOW, any responsibility you abdicate to the government is a freedom you lose.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Weasley on Saturday August 25 2018, @08:41PM (2 children)

      by Weasley (6421) on Saturday August 25 2018, @08:41PM (#726344)

      So your definition of freedom is being able to drink alcohol? That's kind of sad.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 26 2018, @03:17AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 26 2018, @03:17AM (#726437) Journal
        So your definition of freedom is being kind of sad? Ditto.

        Or maybe you have a vastly more expansive definition of freedom and my mischaracterizing it as something minuscule is a disservice?
      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 26 2018, @05:34AM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 26 2018, @05:34AM (#726452) Journal

        Freedom is choice. You may choose to drink alcohol, or not. You may choose to consume tobacco products, or not. You may choose to drive a car, or not. You may choose to - anything. Suicide? That's an option, in a free society. Suicide quickly with a firearm, or suicide slowly with tobacco and alcohol - or with fast cars, or bungee jumping, skydiving, scuba diving - CHOICE.

        Personally, I think you've got to be crazy to jump out of a perfectly fine aircraft two miles up in the sky. But, because I believe in freedom, I'm not trying to make it illegal to jump out of airplanes. Now, just leave my smokes and my drinks alone, please. I'll respect your right to do your own preferred crazy shit.

  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday August 25 2018, @04:55PM (3 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday August 25 2018, @04:55PM (#726260)

    I think the studies that find alcohol protective may be missing a causality link, but the simple fact of association is still powerful enough to merit consideration.

    So what if alcohol decreases your lifespan overall, but people who drink a little live longer? Do we want to set up a control group of people who never drink and then try to argue that we should all abstain so we can get those extra 6 months in the nursing home? Maybe drinking a little puts you in the nursing home a little earlier, is that a bad or good thing?

    I do know, without alcohol and similar recreational use substances, there would be less casual sex and unintended pregnancies - again, is this a reason to attack alcohol?

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @07:08PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @07:08PM (#726308)

      Sex is only casual for the first few minutes. Foreplay, and then the first few strokes. Then, it's serious! But, the girls don't like to get too serious, too fast, so you've got to be casual.

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by MostCynical on Saturday August 25 2018, @09:54PM

        by MostCynical (2589) on Saturday August 25 2018, @09:54PM (#726364) Journal

        I think you're doing it wrong.

        --
        "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 26 2018, @11:27AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 26 2018, @11:27AM (#726512) Journal

      So what if alcohol decreases your lifespan overall, but people who drink a little live longer?

      Well, they're talking about drinking in the first place (not more exotic methods of alcohol consumption). So it's an ill-posed question. Why should we care about the nonexistent list of things that can decrease and increase your lifespan simultaneously.

  • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Saturday August 25 2018, @04:58PM

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Saturday August 25 2018, @04:58PM (#726261) Journal

    figuring out another way to live with less stress [(for example, occasional or moderate alcohol consumption)] could have a similar health benefit.

    And a way to counteract that stress-reducing benefit might be putting out scare studies saying there's "no safe" amount of alcohol and that one who consumes it should expect to be instantly vaporized, or sickened to death, or some such--that way, drinking the alcohol would have less stress-reducing benefit in proportion to the degree that the study is believed to be a true representation of reality.

    It's better to look for patterns, such as the following, described by pseudocode below:

    while 1=1 {
       for x in [coffee alcohol marijuana rock-music etc.] {
         wait (rand(1,5)) years;
         boldly declare "Studies now show that $x in moderation is actually...";
         y = rand(1,2);
         if $y=1 then boldly declare "GOOD for you! \n";
         if $y=2 then boldly declare "BAD for you! \n";
       }
    }

    The meta-analyses of such studies will always be inconclusive at the rate they have been going. I don't think a single "alcohol is bad, mmmkay?" study is going to change that, but of course, I am no researcher myself.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @06:43PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @06:43PM (#726295)

    You definitely should be skeptical. It would be highly suspicious if they found any other result than people who drink in moderation are healthier. People who drink a ton or not at all are disproportionately likely to have health problems driving the decision. There are individuals with religious beliefs that drive it, but they're a relatively small portion of the US population that's typically studied and likely excluded from research.

    Alcohol is poisonous the reason we drink it is primarily because in the past it was because drinking water wasn't safe to drink without the alcohol killing bacteria. From there it became a social custom to drink in many situations and a social lubricant.

    But, the evidence suggesting that it's something that people should be drinking is suspect. We know that drinking small amounts doesn't cause much harm, but that's not the same thing as suggesting that it's a health improvement. Plus, there's no reason to believe that removing the alcohol from those drinks wouldn't lead to similar health benefits.