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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(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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