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The Truth We Won’t Admit: Drinking is Healthy

posted by n1 on Thursday August 28 2014, @06:44PM   
from the starting-the-weekend-early dept.

pTamok writes:

An article by Stanton Peele makes the case that there is strong evidence that reasonable levels of drinking are healthy, and if fact beneficial to your health compared with abstinence.

For all levels of drinking, including the highest one, for both men and women, death rates did not reach those for abstainers.

[...] Of course, abstainers may not drink because they are already ill. Thus the meta-analysis relied on studies that eliminated subjects who are abstaining due to illness, or else contrast drinkers with lifetime abstainers.

There isn't a list of references in the article, but this study may be one of the supporting ones: Alcohol Dosing and Total Mortality in Men and Women: An Updated Meta-analysis of 34 Prospective Studies.

There are, no doubt, reasonable criticisms that can be made, but there does seem to be a case for saying that drinking some alcohol is beneficial.

Article also published in: Pacific Standard Magazine

• Re:grape juice, grapes Re:grape juice, grapes (Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday August 28 2014, @08:38PM

  by khallow (3766) on Thursday August 28 2014, @08:38PM (#86908) Journal

  Other elements naturally found in wine are also conjectured to help given our growing reliance on over-processed foods.

  So why isn't wine itself considered one of the oldest processed foods out there? (Well, aside perhaps from considering beverages as not being foods.) It is pretty heavily processed after all.

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• Re:grape juice, grapes (Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Thursday August 28 2014, @08:46PM

  by bob_super (1357) on Thursday August 28 2014, @08:46PM (#86913)

  I think it's the distinction between "I've harvested stuff, let me crush, mix, filter, ferment it" and "Yeah, food manufacturing takes way too long and costs too much, can I build something that looks the same using half the recipe, plus corn syrup, some derivative of crude oil, artificial colors and cellulose?"

  Both are an exaggeration, but the extreme cases that make it in the media (and clever Wine advertising) shape the perception.

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• Re:grape juice, grapes (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 29 2014, @08:29AM

  by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 29 2014, @08:29AM (#87092)

  From what I've heard, beer is even older. Indeed, some people even hypothesise that the production of beer was the original reason for humans to settle and do agriculture.

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• Re:grape juice, grapes (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 29 2014, @02:08PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 29 2014, @02:08PM (#87199)

  Olive oil and coconut oil are processed foods too, doesn't stop some paleo nuts from considering them "paleo". But given that most don't eat insects and their grubs, I doubt they are really serious in following a real paleo diet ;).

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