Attilio

The body has an incredible way to heal and survive the slings and arrows we throw at it without for the most part suffering immediate repercussions. Alcohol is but one of these attacks however the difference with alcohol versus so many cosmic rays and insults is that you can choose to completely avoid it.

rosefarts

Nobody is saying alcohol isn’t bad for you.

The BS is where someone upthread quoted something that a single drink takes 6 months off your life.

This simply doesn’t make sense. Otherwise, non drinkers would be living decades, even hundreds of years longer than drinkers.

Sounds like a misquoted/misremembered statistic to me.

Gyro

A friend of mine has been a daily drunk for the good part of 20 Years, he turned 70 last month.

terrymorse 

It doesn’t make sense—to you.

It’s a single drink per day, 7 per week. Well into the increased cancer risk territory. And cancer takes years off of life span.

SpeedyBlueBiker

Exactly! I seriously doubt that having 12 drinks over the course of ONE YEAR, one a month on average, is going to take 6 years off of your life as that one poster stated.

rosefarts

Are you under the impression that non drinkers live hundreds of years longer than drinkers?

A single drink may shorten the lifespan by a measurable number, but 6 months a pop? Do some math and get back to me.

Trakhak

The data for the relevant math would be based on ingesting one drink per day, every day of every year, for decades. I can see that taking an average of six months off a lifespan.

I imagine many drinkers would figure it's worth it. If I were a drinker, I probably would think so. Might depend on the quality of life as the end approaches.

PeteHski

It was 1 drink per day, every day on average. The study suggested that non-drinkers may live 6 months longer on average. It's pretty easy to understand.

terrymorse 

Try to comprehend this one thing: 1 drink per day, every day, decreased life expectancy by 6 months.

A completely believable statistic, given that alcohol is a known carcinogen.

Why are people having such a hard time with this?

terrymorse 

Drinking is common in my family. Having buried sister 1 already, with sister 2 just starting chemo, and sister 3 in stage 4 after years of chemo, I wouldn’t wish their quality of life on anyone.

rosefarts

6 months in a typical 80 year lifespan. That’s within the margin of error, static on the edge of the screen. I actually figured it would be worse than that.

Its fear mongering. Plain and simple.

Every single Mormon I know (no booze) eats way more sugar and especially sugary drinks than most other people I know.

Overconsumption of sugar has a lot more tangible negative side effects than one beer a day. Just an observation.

terrymorse 

A curious interpretation.

6 months reduction in expected average lifespan of a population is huge.

Compare it to COVID-19, with 1 million plus US deaths, which reduced life expectancy by about a year.

79pmooney

One word. Denial.

We are a country grounded in alcohol. The slave triangle. Ships built in the southern New England states ran slaves from Africa to sugar plantations, that sugar back to New England where is was made into rum, loaded on the same ships and sailed to Africa to sell, buy more slaves and repeat. The settlers who moved west, staked their claim, then planted apple starts given to them by Johnny Appleseed to establish that they were "working their land" and could get the deed for the land. Now most of those apple trees bore bitter apples no one would eat, but hey! great for hard cider! And cider/alcohol consumption ran at incredibly high per capita levels. 130 years ago, prohibition. The huge booster for gangs. Names, products etc. have changed but now gangs are as much of American life as alcohol. Black market prohibition alcohol production and distribution. Whiskey and hot cars. The cars live on as NASCAR. Our states are funded in very large part by alcohol which they tax and in many cases, sell.

And alcohol has that magic quality to make you feel good while lowing your standard of living, health and bank account.

Not a saint here. I love really good scotch. Also fine wine. I buy bottles of scotch I sometime go through in a month, one shot at night. I don't buy wine because it is just so-so days after opening to get that first glass. (I refuse to get into a situation where I "have to drink", either socially or to consume that whatever before it goes past its best.) And I often go a month or longer drinking no alcohol at all and always note I feel better all the time when I do.

big john

When I quit drinking I was bleeding internally and if I hadn't stopped I wouldn't have lived much longer. After quitting my craving for sugar and sweets went through the roof. I've hogged down baked goods and chocolate for decades after stopping drinking and it is definitely bad for me but I can't compare it to drinking.

If you are going to try and compare alcohol to sugar you would have to figure out some sort of ratio/amount. Like how many Cokes per day does equal damage to how many beers, or something like that.

I know there is obesity, diabetes, and other sugar related illness but in my lifetime these things pale in comparison to the destruction caused by alcohol.

Altair 4

People are all different. Some can drink and it appears not to affect their life span or life style. Some can have a drink and not have another. Others can start and fall rapidly into alcoholism to the point where one drink leads to a falling down drunken stupor each and every time. My family is dealing with that right now in a 30 something nephew. If things don't change, I expect to be at his funeral within a few years either from a DUI car crash or suicide. .

Attilio

The exact thing I quoted with the referece is one drink a day long term takes on average 6 months of your life and it goes linear for the first few drink then becomes exponential after 2-3. But everyone is different and some are more vulnerable than others, or some people's bodies are more or less vulnerable in different organs or different capacities to different diseases either directly from the damage or indirectly downstream. But roll the dice when you imbibe those are the odds that become your life and the biggest (but not only) reason for lost time is cancer. For the young up to age 39 it's trauma, followed by cardiovascular in the middle aged.

Attilio

6 months is significant but what is most significant is it's not linear for everyone and you don't know the risk going forward. It's not a huge amount either to your credit but it's definitely something. I recommend you check out the Lancet study.
https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0...310-2/fulltext
It's the big kahuna when it comes to the topic but isn't the only one.

The WHO page is also enlightening if you're less into the nitty gritty science:
https://www.who.int/europe/news/item...for-our-health

A good general read for civilians and non medical personal is a recent Time magazine article and while a lay publication that is not peer reviewed the benefit is that it quotes highly reputable sources:
https://time.com/6248439/no-safe-amount-of-alcohol/

There is a TON of such info out there, all sobering reads. It's been around for a while but people are starting to notice.

rydabent

That web site was sure a long diatribe for just saying you shouldnt drink. BTW drinking is confined mainly to one or two glasses of wine per month if even that much. For me most anything with alcohol in it tastes bitter.

Oh and my daughter in law works for MADD!!!!!!

rsbob 

In my experience, science is deemed ‘bogus’ when it interferes with something someone wants to do or not do.

LV2TNDM

"Ein Prosit, ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit. "Ein Prosit, ein Pro-o-sit der Gemüüüü-tlichke-iiiitt! Einz, Zwei, Drei, G'suffa!"

Agree.

Attilio

This is true but going back to med school, at least at the recent turn of the century (circa 2000 A.D.) the indoctrination wasn't really present, they were still encouraging critical thinking and above all they trained us to be very skeptical of what is called science. The problem is that a study can be designed based on inclusion criteria or how the control groups are chosen or treated to seem quite valid when in reality they easily confound variables that can reach the desired conclusion by those behind the study.

The issue here and why I believe these anti alcohol stats is because nobody is benefitting except individual people who will likely quit consuming it. It goes against the money, goes against power. Alcohol not only is big business but it's a great sedative to make people weak, powerless and accept what their government is shoving down their throats, or at least take away the strength to resist. It's a numbing agent part of the "bread and circus for the masses" control agenda that has been going on for millenia and useful to the politicians, international finance, corporations and old money power structure.

Obviously going against the money or big companies isn't always a sign of truth either, take the anti-vax quack from the UK who claimed that vaccines cause autism in children. His "study" had a sample size of maybe 10-12 subjects which alone made his claims ridiculous on its face. But these anti alcohol studies are huge, of high quality, very significant, and the message is very repeatable through slightly different study designs in different places with large groups of people. When you have that level of reproducibility using different techniques, looking at different things, surviving peer review to that high level and it goes against the established money I listen! The truth is that there is no "cui bono" or "who benefits" other than individuals saving money, time, disease and life expectancy. Being without alcohol is like most good things in life, free!

terrymorse 

Tell it, comrade! To paraphrase that great German scientific philosopher, "Alkohol ist das Opium des Volkes".

10-12 subjects? To be fair, that's a pretty common size -- for an athletic performance study (which is why we should all be skeptical of those findings).

I can think of one big and powerful group that would benefit: the health insurance industry.

Attilio

This is why I really don't take or recommend any supplements except vitamin D or other essentials that may measure out as deficient in some cases (like iron, B12, folate amongst others) as every few years there is some expose about that industry basically mostly selling what amounts to grass clippings if not much more harmful substances. Supplement industry = scam basically.

Regarding health insurers it's one of those cases that what's good for the goose is also good for the gander as there's nothing wrong with having incentives align. Years ago people were pretty stupid about coming in for their physical, getting colonscopies/mammograms done that sort of stuff. Now I (the physician) am starting to lose money on non-compliant patients who don't do that health maintenance stuff as the insurer takes it off the top at the end of the year if more than handful of patients don't check off those boxes. It's simple logic if you get your health maintenance addressed and diseases treated you'll do better. The patient will be healthier, happier and have a better outcome which also means the insurer saves money. When everybody wins there is nothing wrong with that.

rosefarts

I definitely agree.

Like the anesthesiologist who went on a long rant about the Covid vaccine was poison and a science experiment, because that is what aligns with his political beliefs.

Or the nurse who went on a long racist diatribe on FB (also about Covid) while trying to frame it as some sort of scientific observation. Adding that his time in healthcare made his opinion more accurate.

Just two examples from my Facebook (former) friends.

It goes both ways. Everyone is biased. Including me.

Read back what I have written. I’ve never advocated for heavy drinking and I’ve even suggested that my former 1-2 beers most nights was too much. On that note, I’ve cut down to post ski, post climb, and vacation drinking. Probably a 2/3 reduction.

rsbob 

Very much agree.

Was ready for someone to challenge me and say that one cannot trust science because it flip flops. My reply would have been that sciences is evolutionary. Beware click bait headlines, do your research using reputable institutions and research studies. Having an undergrad in Bio Sci I was inculcated in the Scientific Method but at the same time taught to question and validate. We have two M.D.s in the immediate family and several which are friends as a result. I appreciate their thoughtful approach to life and values.