Machka 

Are you looking for justification to keep drinking?

And I'm not sure I would look to Livestrong as a good, scientific resource.

Anything I've heard about benefits to drinking alcohol have been that a small glass of red wine a day might possibly be beneficial because of the antioxidants. If you're doing that, you're probably all right. But even that much alcohol doesn't appeal to me.

McBTC

Personally, I am intrigued to now learn that when it comes to longevity, studies indicate that, 'abstaining was a risk factor.'

mstateglfr 

Edit some more then get back to us once you get to just your comment about this topic.

Jim from Boston

What's Healthier, Cycling or Moderate Alcohol Use?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim from Boston

I recently posted to this thread,”Goodby to bad habits”:

Quote:

Originally Posted by indyfabz

And it's still too cumbersome to parse through.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim from Boston

Agree and duly edited.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mstateglfr

Edit some more then get back to us once you get to just your comment about this topic.

"Get to just your comment about this topic"?!! FWIW,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maelochs

Jim from somewhere between New Jersey and Vermont gave us a post which is more than one foot long...

The rest of you just need to surrender and bow down

Quote:

Originally Posted by ksryder

Wow. That is masterful. I've always thought it was just self-indulgent and convoluted, but now I see that they are really performance art.

Bravo, sir. Bravo.

Furthermore, I quoted eight (8) subscribers in my first post to this thread.

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Originally Posted by gugie

Mentions/quote notification should be #1 priority. It generates more use.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rollfast

You mean that more people possibly view your profile?

I killed that stuff off in the last version and never lacked for people looking at that, same for quotes.

Let's get the posting and editing features up and running right first? Mentions etc. were the last things added into it anyway

Quote:

Originally Posted by obrentharris

You miss the point. Some of us actually like to communicate with each other:

Quotes and mentions are a great tool for doing that, also for moving discussions forward within a large and diverse thread. Just look at the number of times quotes have been used to forward this discussion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by himespau

I imagine that he means that those of us who get e-mail notification of quotes and mentions are more likely to come back more frequently because our interest has been piqued to wonder what people are saying about our comments not that we want to look at the profiles of people...

And mentioning [and quoting] someone draws their attention to the thread in which they've been mentioned, which they might not otherwise visit, again bringing up the number of visits.

More page views => more revenue...

Though I have postedSO @mstateglfr and @indyfabz even though I didn’t quote you previously, thanks for your comments.

Anyways, .

McBTC

Agreed, footlong hotdogs are performance art-- if, e.g., Louisiana Red Hots and sourdough rolls.

McBTC

True, true... healthier isn't necessarily related to increased longevity.

UmneyDurak

Cycling outside you are exposed to pollution from all the cars, drivers who intentionally or not out to kill you. Drinking, moderately, just involves seating on a coach while watching TV. Clearly drinking is safer. lol

jackb

One of the most unhealthy things you can do is read all these articles that tell you what is bad for you. Then you worry and, perhaps, alter your diet, not necessarily for the good. As far as I can see, practically everything you can consume is bad for you. Best just to live the way you like. If you feel healthy and look healthy you probably are healthy. If not, you'll know soon enough. In the meantime, cycle, drink, eat what you like, in short, live the way you want to. You're doomed anyway.

ivesjd

I live a nice 7 mile ride from two wonderful breweries...

MnHPVA Guy

I have the only condition for which the Harvard School of Medicine suggests that a non-drinker start consuming 3-4 drinks per week. Vodka, red wine, beer, whatever. Despite a healthy diet and a fair amount of exercise I could not get my HDL up to the recommended level. Started having 3-4 drinks per week and HDL was 53. As a heart patient I've a record of my cholesterol, every 3 months dating back to 1992. But I also have GERD. So there are long periods when I've avoid alcohol. HDL is consistently high 40s-low 50s with alcohol, mid 30s without.

BTW alcoholics tend to have great HDL.

DomaneS5

Booze.

McBTC

Just what the doctor ordered...

McBTC

e.g., cycling, chicken wings and bloody Mary's garnished with celery for the fiber?

yukiinu

Alcohol is a drug that distorts your brain and thinking. Any "report" listing the health benefits of alcohol will be a list of lies sponsored by alcohol industry and sellers. Such lists are directed at alcoholics ready to use any and all Rationalizations to continue their use of this drug, that they CHOOSE to use, alcoholism is not a decease, it is a choice that drinkers make, because they like it. Alcoholism runs in my family and I've seen and heard all the b's excuses for the selfish choices drunks make. To equate alcohol with the benefits of cycling is disgusting. And there is no such thing as "moderate drinking" , which is just another alcoholic rationalization.

slowrevs

A long term, very large scale study of alcohol use by the British Health Agency that provides medical care for most Brits concluded that more than two drinks (any type) per week is associated with shorter life span.

The greater the average quantity of alcohol consumed per week, the greater the reduction in life span.

Will try to find specific BMJ link and add later.

fietsbob

Bike to the Pub...

MoAlpha

Rollfast

After you read all the garbage that is either happening to your body or all the ever-changing opinions on things they don't fully know (guessed)...

Go ahead and have that drink.

McBTC

It's talked about as an example of one of those rare "Black Swan" findings... the benefits.

Petros98223

Frankly that is a strange question, the two activities are not related, as if one is exclusive to the other.


And I do not think anyone has shown a causal link with bicycle riding (or exercise in general) to longevity. You could even argue on average bicycle riders risk more accidents, and that can not be good for longevity.


OTOH there have been studies that show that long lived population groups (such as populations in certain Mediterranean islands) do consume moderates amounts of wine regularly. The other curious thing they do is have sex regularly into their old age. Does the sex make them live longer? or is having sex the results of good health into old age? Or perhaps it is unrelated, but rather an activity that keeps their will to live up, and has them looking forward to the next day (which you can not say is true with many of the elderly).


I think I may have even read a study that found that hard intense exercise over the long term can actually shorten your life. But I have to add that is not a risk for most of us as we age, me included.


Much of what aging and longevity is a mystery. WE live longer now in recent years than in any previous generation in the past. One of the things funny about the so called Paleo diet is that paleo man live to be about 35 to 40 years old, it that really a model of "healty life style"?


we have more disease that affect the elderly now because we have a lot more elderly people around because we are living much longer than we did in the past.


One thing for sure, wine consumption by humans has been around since the neolithic period, perhaps longer. Bicycles have only been around scarcely 150 years.

AlmostTrick

Except there are insurance companies that offer discounted premiums to people who cycle regularly, so obviously cycling HAS been demonstrated to add to health and life expectancy. These companies are in the business of getting these calculations right. Maybe they'll start doling out discounts to moderate drinkers sometime soon.

McBTC

Based on a study of TdF-level competitors, years of comparatively extreme exertion, even to the point of utter exhaustion, didn't seem to shorten their lifespans given that their average longevity fell into the upper half of the population. We had a thread on that and links to the study.

McBTC

I think Bob Roll may have combined moderate alcohol consumption with competitive-level road cycling, back in the day...

Seattle Forrest

Stop sugar coating it and tell us how you really feel.

oldbear63

Except that just a few years ago Scientific American stated in an editorial that "If you don't drink scientific evidence now suggests that you should start".

That advice might have changed; now there is evidence that alcohol causes or promotes cancer. So, drink alcohol to prevent heart disease, but it might kill you from cancer.