[HN Gopher] The flip-flop on whether alcohol is good for you (2023)
___________________________________________________________________
The flip-flop on whether alcohol is good for you (2023)
Author : nickwritesit
Score : 43 points
Date : 2024-06-07 10:44 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (slate.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (slate.com)
| monero-xmr wrote:
| Harms you physically, sure. But a night out socializing and
| making memories with friends, the psychological benefits can last
| a long time, which often positively influences the physical.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Alcohol not required.
| kryz wrote:
| Maybe with your friends...
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| Time to get new friends.
| freedomben wrote:
| Not required, but for many people it greatly enhances the
| experience. For some people it can also be an important part
| of fully relaxing.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Feels like peak HN: alcohol makes you a better person and
| meditation will send you over the brink.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| No, peak HN is interpreting every comment as if they were
| absolutes, twisting their meaning and reply with smug
| one-liners.
| deafpolygon wrote:
| Honestly, that's just peak Internet.
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| Absolutely not, but maybe there is a reason why we have used
| it for centuries? If you watch videos of people travelling to
| remote villages one of the first things that old timers do is
| offer them a drink.
|
| There is a value to a social lubricant. People get more
| passionate, or philosophical. People are less likely to
| discuss the cost of drywall impacting their bathroom
| renovation.
|
| Sobriety is merely one state of conciousness, and there is no
| saying it is solely the best.
| squigz wrote:
| > but maybe there is a reason why we have used it for
| centuries?
|
| This sort of thinking is rather problematic. There's lots
| of stuff we did for centuries that we now realize is bad
| for us or are just blatantly wrong.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Right.
|
| For most of history, humans were optimizing for calorie
| shortages. It is only relatively recently, and only in
| some locations, where food has become consistently
| abundant.
| darkgenesha wrote:
| The reason is that it's a coping mechanism for our shift
| from nomadic to sedentary living
| Clamchop wrote:
| Simple is appealing but don't let it carry you away!
| warkdarrior wrote:
| Interesting. Do we know why nomadic people do not drink?
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I don't think this is really true? The Mongols and Huns
| were nomadic and also drank.
| darkgenesha wrote:
| I would say it's having a collective purpose. For example
| you wouldn't think to drink while trying to meet a tight
| deadline with your team at work. That same scenario would
| play out everyday but at a way more real and absorbing
| level, even if you're prosperous. This is exclusive to
| nomadic living because as soon as you are settled your
| collective purpose wanes and specialization kicks in...
| (then as your population balloons you need to patch
| together things like religion and politics to maintain
| collectivity) Although I guess you may drink for leisure
| or on special occasions if you have access, my point is
| more that dependency and using alcohol as a "social
| lubricant" is tightly tied to settled living
| mapcars wrote:
| Depends, where? If you go to a village in India they
| probably offer you some food so delicious you could never
| imagine. But in the west alcohol is all people know.
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| It goes with food if you are European. It's part of the
| hospitality. You can see it here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zxVcpOzOPY Both the
| Italian man in the mountains, and the Greek lady in the
| mediterranean. As well as various Georgians in this one:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFFZpLbvJqQ
|
| Not saying you have to do it, but it's part of European
| cultures for centuries. There is no need to be dismissive
| of it. My partner is Indian, doesn't drink, and Indian
| food is no more or less delicious than genuine European
| food.
|
| I have no problem with people not drinking, just the
| smugness of those who make it a personality trait.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| this isn't super crazy different across cultures, just
| the beverage is. In Europe it is beer because that is
| what is locally most present. Often it's coffee or tea
| where that is more locally available, and honestly even
| Europeans offer coffee or tea as part of hospitality.
|
| coffee actually used to be considered as, or more sinful
| than alcohol when it came to being a social lubricant.
| (it did not help that coffee houses became known as
| hotbeds of revolutionary thought in Europe.)
| babalulu wrote:
| One of the reasons we've used it for centuries is that in
| the days before treated water it was safer to drink.
| Microbes in water had the potential to make you very sick
| or even kill you. Even today, if you're traveling to a
| location where the water supply is suspect, it's safer to
| drink beer instead of water.
| adamomada wrote:
| This is a popular misconception according to the
| askhistorians faq. I don't think you've ever had beer
| either, thinking that you could possibly replace water
| with it.
| cjk2 wrote:
| Hey if I stayed sober I'd have had three less kids and two
| less wives.
| itishappy wrote:
| Heh. Would that have net a positive or negative impact on
| your health?
| xyproto wrote:
| From the perspective of the genes, having kids but being
| unhealthy is better than being a healthy loner. And this
| is good health in a larger, cross-generational,
| perspective
| cjk2 wrote:
| It can vary hourly :)
| earnesti wrote:
| Bullshit. Sober people go out socializing, their way to
| socialize is just different, and they have no trouble
| finding partners. If you had decided to go without a drink,
| you would have found a partner, just a different one from
| different social circles.
| cjk2 wrote:
| This wholly depends on where you are in the world.
| listless wrote:
| No, but it certainly helps. Alcohol makes me a better
| listener. A better father. A better husband. A better friend.
| Less selfish. Less judgmental. More caring and more generous.
|
| I drink cautiously because I know the health risks. I limit
| myself and most of the time do not drink at all. But I would
| be lying if I said alcohol doesn't make me a better person.
| earnesti wrote:
| Whatever bro, I trust your self judgement. But
| statistically, I would bet that alcohol makes worse
| parents, worse listeners, worse friends. And quite often it
| makes outright terrible parents.
| xyzzy4747 wrote:
| Alcohol dulls your mind at best. If you enjoy using your
| brain, it's a net negative even with small amounts.
| TheGRS wrote:
| I can definitely sympathize with alcohol improving me in
| some situations. When I'm at social gatherings sober I'm
| in my head a lot, overthinking. A couple of drinks in
| though and I'm not using my analytical brain, I'm using
| the part that is good at improv, and I have much better
| conversations because of it, and usually comes away from
| those events more positive than sober.
| dbrueck wrote:
| Do what you want of course, but that better version of you
| already exists without the booze, and you don't need to
| give alcohol credit for it. And because it already exists,
| it is very much possible to learn to let out that seemingly
| better version of yourself without a drug. Not saying you
| "should" or whatever, just wanted to convey that it's an
| option, that's all.
| sixo wrote:
| That it's not required is the fun part, and really is
| necessary for it to be a good idea at all. See GK Chesterton:
|
| "Drink because you are happy, but never because you are
| miserable. Never drink when you are wretched without it, or
| you will be like the grey-faced gin-drinker in the slum; but
| drink when you would be happy without it, and you will be
| like the laughing peasant of Italy. Never drink because you
| need it, for this is rational drinking, and the way to death
| and hell. But drink because you do not need it, for this is
| irrational drinking, and the ancient health of the world."
| TheGRS wrote:
| Drinking during celebrations are some of my favorite
| memories. Its like we're all already happy and high on good
| news, think weddings or big sales news or getting a big
| project completed. And then we drink because the worries of
| the world are behind us, now the happiness is uninhibited
| and jovial. I like to think those moments add time to your
| life.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| But being sober around drunk people sucks.
| earnesti wrote:
| I find it quite OK, just have to leave early enough.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I'm really glad that I've given up alcohol and it improved a
| lot of things in my life including sleep and anxiety, but it
| was also one of the single most isolating things I have ever
| done. I have lost more friends over my not drinking than any
| politics/life choice/etc. I was not some kind of alcoholic
| before, it was just very normal for my social circle.
|
| Even for my friends who are still friends, it took them many
| months to realize it was fine to drink around me and
| sometimes they still feel awkward about it even though I
| bring my non-alcoholic alternatives.
| earnesti wrote:
| For me, I have found some new social circles where alcohol
| doesn't play such an huge role. I'm also in good terms with
| my old drinking buddies, but of course it is not the same
| thing any more.
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| Kudos to you. I hope you'll inspire others around you for a
| better life.
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| Alcohol is absolutely not required. It's the Western culture.
| I live in a country/social circle where nobody drinks and
| it's plain out funny seeing Westerners thinking alcohol is
| some absolute necessity of life.
| roywiggins wrote:
| It's a _lot_ of cultures, not just Western culture.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The interesting thing about Islamic culture is that for all
| their sobriety, those societies are still prone to
| outbursts of political/religious rage. No external
| intoxicant needed.
| ls612 wrote:
| Islam is the exception not the rule in human cultures.
| Every human tribe which has figured out fermentation has
| used it extensively.
| zeroxfe wrote:
| Neither is dressing well, dining out, or taking an uber. Very
| few things are actually "required."
|
| For some people, alcohol is a low-cost low-effort means to
| enhance experience and improve social function.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| You're not wrong, but the jury's out on if not socialising
| versus socialising with a couple of beers or glasses of wine
| is healthier. But my bet is on the latter
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Maybe. The last time I ever really drank on a regular basis was
| my early 20s, circa turn of the century, and I had two best
| friends from high school, Mike and Lisa. We went out together
| almost every night at times, definitely every weekend. Club
| 80s. Some theater in Hollywood that did John Waters double
| features with a drag show during the intermission. Pre-gaming
| with $5 1.75 liter bottles of Popov in the parking lot. We
| really did make some great memories. It's probably still the
| best time of my entire life and the closest friendships I ever
| had.
|
| Lisa died in 2016 from alcohol withdrawals. Mike was a speed
| addict for nearly a decade but eventually recovered.
|
| My wife is an alcoholic, unfortunately. She's been in the ICU
| twice in the time we've been married, both times for acute
| vitamin deficiency and liver failure. She told me once on the
| way to the hospital that she saw a tunnel with a light at the
| end and our cat floating in it inviting her to come. The ER doc
| said she would probably have died within a day if I hadn't
| brought her in. When Lisa died, it was because her roommate was
| out of town and there was nobody to notice, care, and bring her
| in. When she was found, she's already been dead for three days.
|
| I don't know that I have a point. Just be careful. Not you
| specifically, but everyone out there. If you're 50 and
| successfully practiced moderation for decades, I guess you'll
| probably be fine. But if you're a teenager trying to make your
| parties more thrilling, you're flipping a coin with your life.
| You don't know which person you'll end up being, the one who
| can stop or the one who can't.
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| Just because alcohol is deeply ingrained in Western culture
| doesn't mean you should feel guilty saying alcohol is
| unconditionally bad for society, when it took your dear
| friend and almost your wife, twice. There are other,
| healthier worldviews and cultures out there. The particular
| one I'm living in being called Islam.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| Inviting religion into the discussion will not lead to
| anything good, especially when you stamp one "healthier" -
| which means that others are not.
| TheGRS wrote:
| Yea I thought that was the whole reason. But I guess there was
| a lot of chasing of physical reasons that wine and other
| alcohol would be beneficial. I usually heard about antioxidants
| being cited as a positive.
|
| Stress is generally bad for the body (but note: I am not a
| doctor), and a little alcohol can be a social lubricant and
| reduce the stress of social situations or just your life
| problems in general. If the only real benefit of alcohol is
| from social lubrication, then its probably an almost impossible
| thing to find causation, just too many factors to deal with.
| pfdietz wrote:
| > antioxidants being cited as a positive.
|
| There was a big study on the antioxidant vitamins (A, C, E)
| to see if they helped against lung cancers. It turned out
| they made it worse, not better. Cancer cells are under
| oxidative stress, and immune cells using oxidizing substances
| to help kill their targets.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Getting buzzed feels good. Not healthy, but feels good.
|
| After a couple of beers I get extremely fired up and
| creative/motivated, but it's like walking on a tightrope - a bit
| too much, and I'm past the productive phase.
|
| If cannabis or hallucinogens were allowed, I suspect more people
| would pick those over alcohol for evening fun at home...but,
| alas, at most places alcohol is the only option. So that's what
| we're stuck with.
| wavemode wrote:
| I'm one of those weird people for whom no amount of buzzedness
| or drunkenness, small or large, feels good.
|
| Doesn't feel bad, per se. I suppose it just feels kind of
| neutral, and strange. Like my senses have lost a bit of
| clarity.
| midiguy wrote:
| I'm one of those weird people for whom alcohol feels nice but
| also makes me incredibly sleepy to the point that I become
| way less social. Thus I will enjoy a beer at home but if I'm
| going out I will choose other substances (or abstinence).
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Alcohol doesn't give me crippling anxiety and heightened
| awareness of all the weird things my body does.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| It does for some people.
|
| Either way, hardly a reason to make it illegal.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I had this problem until I bought gummies and took
| comparatively very small doses. Now I can enjoy the warm
| fuzziness and giggling, without freaking out about what
| people think of how I am placing my left hand on my lap.
|
| I buy 5mg gummies and cut them in half, 2.5mg is plenty for
| me.
| InSteady wrote:
| Less is definitely more. There really could be a stronger
| culture of moderation like there is with alcohol (one glass
| of wine / beer with dinner crowd). I almost gave up on
| cannabis until I started aiming to just barely hit the
| threshold of feeling it and eventually learned how to
| consistently land on the perfect mild buzz.
|
| It's way easier for me to stick to moderate use and take
| breaks with cannabis than it is with alcohol. Dialing in
| dosages with edibles is a bigger learning curve though
| because the feedback is so delayed. I prefer smoking for
| this reason as well as the shorter duration of effects.
|
| I'm using such tiny amounts, it can't be any worse for the
| lungs than exercising outside in a city full of car exhaust
| and tire particles. Or so I tell myself, ha.
| InSteady wrote:
| Alcohol is definitely bad for anxiety in the long run if you
| are using frequently (even in small amounts). It does a real
| number on your GABAergic system.
| midiguy wrote:
| Sure, it increases anxiety overall particularly when going
| through withdrawals or hangovers. But I have never heard of
| its usage directly triggering fully-fledged panic attacks
| as weed so commonly does.
| steve1977 wrote:
| > Getting buzzed feels good. Not healthy, but feels good.
|
| Does it though? I did not drink for a while now, but basically,
| if anything, it just attenuated feelings that felt bad a bit.
| But it never made me feel good per se.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I don't really drink anymore, and before that I used to drink
| enough (3-4 glasses of wine most nights) that I rarely hit
| the sweet spot. But if I could hit it, that buzzy feeling was
| really pretty damn good (although ... it didn't last very
| long, and was incredibly easy to overshoot).
| Mashimo wrote:
| If not, why do you think people drink?
| globular-toast wrote:
| This must be a genetic thing. I've definitely heard other
| people saying alcohol has a "buzz". But for me it's nothing
| like that. Any amount will only slow me down and desensitise
| me. It does lower inhibitions, but never in a desirable way. I
| realised at some point I was only drinking because of the
| social obligation and not because I enjoyed it for its own
| sake.
| InSteady wrote:
| It could be non-genetic as well. Various vitamin, mineral,
| and enzyme deficiencies, brain chemistry (that part of it
| that isn't genetically determined), and other health stuff
| could all play a role.
|
| I am sometimes like you describe, where booze basically just
| makes me feel kind of slow and loopy but not in a way that is
| pleasant (kind of reminds me of how benzos felt). If I keep
| pushing to try and force the good feeling with more drinks I
| only end up tired and irritable, like when you wake up from a
| nap feeling all out of sorts.
|
| Other times I start getting a nice pleasant "glow" or buzz
| going within the first half of a drink and can ride that for
| hours with steady imbibing. Pain is numbed, body feels
| lighter (paradoxically, because there is also a certain
| heaviness with drinking), have an easier time focusing and
| socializing, stress and anxiety are relieved, etc.
|
| Too bad alcohol is so damn addictive and harmful, the latter
| effects are quite nice.
| yrcyrc wrote:
| Funny he calls it the French paradox. Last I heard of that
| concept it was about secret services giving up on setting traps
| to spies whose wives couldn't give two effs about their husband
| being unfaithful. "I know and I don't give a damn"
|
| Otherwise, and being French, we heard it all. Sometimes it's
| wine, others it's butter, cheese, etc when it's not like "God was
| born in France" type of thing.
|
| I'm Breton first, Irish second and then eventually French when
| they're playing the World Cup, but seriously there are some
| enzymes, dietary habits and so on that do justify some of the
| findings.
|
| They used to serve red wine in schools until late 70's or 80's
| can't remember but there are definitely DNA, habits, regional
| effects that do come into place I believe.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| The wine in schools was dropped in the 60s'. I have never seen
| wine at school (since mid-70s'). My father told me he had it
| for lunch though.
|
| This said, Bretagne is special regarding this :) (sorry,
| couldn't help)
| PheonixPharts wrote:
| In my lifetime virtually everything that was once good for you
| (wine, high grain diet, non-fat foods) is now a bad and vice
| versa (eggs, high fat - low carb foods).
|
| And articles like this one have been appearing in some variation
| my entire life. My take away, long ago, is that nutrition is
| fundamentally complex and poorly understood topic and any extreme
| opinions are likely to be inverted.
|
| On the topic of alcohol, one things that has really become clear
| to me, is how directly tied to my environment drinking is. I've
| always liked to have a beer with dinner, but whether or not that
| was my only drink or one of many has much less to do with my
| personal decisions and much more to do with my environment, and
| I've noticed the same goes for most people.
|
| Many of us became pretty serious drinkers during the pandemic. As
| it eased up I never made the decision to drink less, I just
| naturally drank less.
|
| Point being is that no only am I skeptical of the claims of what
| I should and should not consume, I'm skeptical of entirely how
| much agency I have to change what I should consume baring case
| where the impact is immediate.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| You'll probably enjoy this clip from the Woody Allen movie
| Sleeper, where his character is revived 200 years in the future
| after being cryogenically frozen in 1973. Just watch the first
| minute or so.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2fYguIX17Q
| xtracto wrote:
| There's also a good sketch of a "time travel dietitian":
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ua-WVg1SsA
| johnmaguire wrote:
| > Point being is that no only am I skeptical of the claims of
| what I should and should not consume, I'm skeptical of entirely
| how much agency I have to change what I should consume baring
| case where the impact is immediate.
|
| Can you elaborate on what you mean that you're skeptical of how
| much agency you have to change what you should consume? A
| common definition of addiction is that it is the inability to
| control your consumption. However, "I never made the decision
| to drink less, I just naturally drank less," doesn't sound
| anything like addiction.
|
| I began drinking both more frequently and in increased amounts
| of alcohol during the pandemic, but for me, this didn't stop or
| ease up until I made a conscious decision to stop. For me, it
| was habitual. And with habit came increased tolerance.
| PheonixPharts wrote:
| To be clear, as an ex-smoker, I do believe we have agency in
| the cases where patterns are disruptive. Smoking tobacco got
| in the way of a range of activities, and I had to put in a
| serious effort to curb this behavior. Certainly drinkers who
| find their drinking interferes with other things are able to
| change their habits. Though even this is probably more
| environmental than not. I haven't smoked in 20+ years but I
| also no longer know any smokers. I'm not sure I would be a
| non-smoker today if smoking rates were closer to what they
| were in the 1950s. Similarly I have known people with
| problematic drinking behavior and their ability to stop has
| always been strongly correlated with having good _reasons_ to
| stop.
|
| However, for the smaller things that "aren't good for you" in
| a less immediate sense, I don't think we have as much control
| over our behaviors as we'd like to believe.
|
| Another example is obesity. Many people still chalk this up
| to a "moral issue" where people are making "poor choices",
| but that doesn't seem like a good explanation for why we live
| in an obesity epidemic. I personally don't think people in
| 2024 are dramatically less "moral" than they were in 1990.
|
| My personal pandemic realization was that I'm far more of a
| node in a network of cells in a vast social organism that is
| humanity than I am an individual actor.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| My mother told me that when she was young, tomatoes vere very
| suspect. So yes, these nutritional advices are very volatile.
| czl wrote:
| FYI: Tomato leaves and stems contain solanine, a toxic
| glycoalkaloid that can cause digestive issues, headaches, and
| other symptoms if consumed in large quantities.
| frereubu wrote:
| I like the Michael Pollan dictum: "Eat food. Not too much.
| Mostly plants." I don't think you can go far wrong with that.
| Abekkus wrote:
| For the food portion of that instruction, I'd tell people to
| "eat cells, not substances." Pasta and rice don't look good
| along that spectrum.
| jahbrewski wrote:
| Not sure I'm tracking here. Can you explain this further?
| pfdietz wrote:
| At some point I predict the endogenous pesticides in plants
| are going to be found to be very problematic. The famous Ames
| Test for mutagens goes off on them.
|
| https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/ames-test-and-
| real...
|
| > Plants have evolved a variety of pesticides and antifeedant
| compounds, many of which are reactive and toxic at some level
| - therefore, most (as in 99.99%, according to his estimate)
| of the pesticides in the human diet are those found in the
| plants themselves. The cruciferous vegetables (broccoli,
| cabbage, mustard and so on) are particularly rich in
| compounds that will light up an Ames test. A fine article of
| his from 1990 (Ang. Chem. Int. Ed.,29, 1197) states that ". .
| .it is probably true that almost every plant product in the
| supermarket contains natural carcinogens."
| dang wrote:
| These flips seem to happen on a cycle of 20 or 30 years. I
| don't think it's a coincidence that this is roughly the
| generational cycle. My theory is that each new generation of
| researchers establishes itself by overturning the findings of
| the previous generation--especially the shakiest ones.
| mattmein wrote:
| Reminds me of Planck's principle: > A new scientific truth
| does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them
| see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually
| die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it
| ...
| brookst wrote:
| Well said, but I think some of this boils down to people who
| prefer prescriptive versus descriptive health and diet info.
|
| I'm similar in that I'll drink more or less based on
| environment; a vacation on the beach, I'll probably drink more.
| A vacation in the Middle East, I'll likely drink not at all.
|
| But I don't really care. I'll enjoy drinks sometimes and skip
| others.
|
| Some people really just want to have best practices defined for
| them, like they can be happy if they check the right boxes.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| This... our understanding of biology is way too primitive to
| have a meaningful mechanistic understanding of what is healthy,
| and what is not. Most of the nutrition advice is based on
| simple observational correlations that are assuming a cause and
| effect that just isn't there. People with high cholesterol also
| tend to have more cardiovascular disease, but it turns out
| eating cholesterol and fat doesn't actually increase risk of
| cardiovascular disease. People who eat a lot of fish tend to
| have better health outcomes, but it turns out taking fish oil
| does not reproduce those outcomes, and so on and so on.
|
| Scientific nutrition is mostly just "scientism" - an irrational
| overconfidence bordering on a religious faith in unfounded
| assumptions based on observational studies, without admitting
| what we don't know.
|
| I think it is reasonable to avoid trying to make decisions
| about diet based on this stuff, but I think ideas like the
| paleo diet or evolutionary nutrition make a lot of sense- eat
| diets similar to those that humans have eaten safely for a long
| time, as those are what we are likely adapted to. Interestingly
| though this itself is massively diverse: there are hunter
| gatherer societies with almost every diet composition
| imaginable: from artic diets that are high protein and fat but
| nearly zero carb, to cultures like the kitavans whose diet is
| very high carb and low protein. Our metabolism is very
| adaptable and any diet that is mostly fresh nutrient dense
| foods from plant and/or animal sources is probably about
| equally healthy.
|
| Ironically, the stress of worrying constantly about if your
| food is optimally healthy, is probably more harmful to your
| health than anything typically considered unhealthy.
| bushwald wrote:
| The agricultural lobby sold us things like the food pyramid
| which said eat more grain, for example. I think people have
| become more conscious of such manipulation and so things have
| turned around. Unfortunately, capital, as always, has figured
| out how to co-opt the change in attitudes as well as weird
| Internet fad diets (e.g., gluten free) to keep people buying
| from the middle of the store.
| glenstein wrote:
| I find takes like this to be true in the specific details but
| wildly wrong as a big picture takeaway. A lot of people are
| citing their favorite quotes here, so here's one of mine from
| the Relativity of Wrong by Isaac Asimov:
|
| >When people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When
| people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if
| you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong
| as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than
| both of them put together.
|
| So I think there's a relativity of wrong problem that you run
| into when suggesting it's all just so complex and leaving it at
| that.
|
| I would nevertheless absolutely agree that nutrition science
| and communication around it has been disorganized,
| contradictory, and without much in the way of a north star or a
| reliable "vanguard" of communicators representing a firm
| consensus. I feel much better about public communication from,
| say, astrophysics, archeology, geology, etc. and I think
| there's a characteristic degree of stability of knowledge
| particular to each of those fields.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| For me, the best part of TFA was the final paragraph that went
| into the actual risks to individuals rather than a public health
| policy perspective.
|
| Both viewpoints are entirely valid, but being reminded that the
| actual risk of dying from any of the mechanisms alcohol interacts
| with are very low to start with, so small increases in those
| risks does not add up to much ... per individual.
|
| As a society of millions, of course, the product of the shift in
| probability and population is quite significant.
|
| The difference between these two perspectives is often ignored,
| or at best elided.
| advael wrote:
| Popular nutrition science has basically been advertising since
| both have existed. I view real health information as complicated
| and full of caveats and individual differences
|
| Basically any medical advice you get from a headline or even a
| single study is a lie
| tonymet wrote:
| Popular nutrition science suffers from correlation fallacy.
| Unless they can explain the causal mechanism, or at least
| hypothesize, it's practically bankrupt.
|
| Plus, there is a lot of incentive to transition self-medicators
| off of alcohol and nicotine and onto SSRIs, diabetes medication,
| anti-anxiety meds and more profitable products.
| djhn wrote:
| Pretty sure alcohol has much higher margins. Most first, second
| and third line of treatment psych meds have been out of patent
| for a while now and cost pennies.
| generic92034 wrote:
| On a different angle - why is alcoholism considered sinful by
| some branches of Christianity, but gluttony (which also gets
| criticized in the Bible) is basically ignored?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Because the people making such rules are just human beings,
| subject to all the same associated inconsistencies.
| hi-v-rocknroll wrote:
| Religious folks would argue their rules appeared out of
| divine provenance. I say: pics or it didn't happen, and no
| cheating using ChatGPT.
| joncp wrote:
| because one doesn't tend to get drunk on pie and then go beat
| up your wife or run over a pedestrian with your car. Is it
| biblical? No, but people rank sins by social impact out of
| habit.
| dpig_ wrote:
| People don't run over pedestrians because they smoked a
| cigarette, either, but church people view smoking in a
| similar way.
| hi-v-rocknroll wrote:
| Magical thinking is allowed to be selective.
|
| Plus: _" It is difficult to get [someone] to understand
| [obesity, chronic heart disease, strokes, arteriosclerosis,
| climate change, pandemics, antibiotic resistance,
| deforestation, environmental degradation, pollution,
| ultraprocessing malnutrition, and soaring food prices] when his
| [addiction to Big Macs] depends upon his not understanding
| it."_
| coolsunglasses wrote:
| Gluttony is definitely a sin in the Catholic Church and is one
| of the well known seven deadly sins.
| felipeerias wrote:
| Alcoholism would be the sin of Gluttony ("Gula" in Latin),
| which is basically overindulgence and overconsumption.
|
| The definition of this sin became rather expansive over the
| centuries, so it would also cover those who engage in obsessive
| anticipation of the things they consume, who spend too much on
| them, etc. One reason for this was that the gorging of the
| prosperous may leave the needy hungry.
|
| So from that point of view, it seems to me that the sin of
| Gluttony is still routinely condemned by people of a Christian
| culture, even if they are not aware of this ancient framework.
|
| Regarding your specific question, I would say that overeating
| to the point of causing hunger to others is still criticised.
| At the same time, assuming that there is enough food to go
| around, eating too much of it doesn't cause the same negative
| externalities to others as drinking too much alcohol.
| jack_h wrote:
| It seems like people are trying to min-max their lives and in
| doing so are missing the forest for the trees. Not a single drop
| of alcohol is healthy, not a single photon hitting bare skin is
| healthy, etc.
|
| In the end life is full of unknowns. There are people in their
| 90s who drink like a fish and smoke like a chimney. There are
| people who led a very healthy lifestyle and died in their 40s.
| Don't forget to enjoy life while trying to make it last as long
| as possible.
|
| "Everything in moderation, including moderation." -Oscar Wilde
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| > not a single photon hitting bare skin is healthy
|
| For vitamin D it'll be more unhealthy to never get sunlight
| exposure.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| This- people are 'min-maxing' on single isolated dimensions,
| and not looking at the bigger picture. Sun does a lot more
| than increase vitamin D, it also increases metabolic rate by
| acting directly on the mitochondria, lowers blood pressure,
| calibrates the circadian rhythm, coordinates eye development,
| and many other vitally important things.... and it turns out
| the most of the most deadly types of skin cancer aren't even
| caused by sun exposure.
|
| When you unnaturally radically alter your diet, physical
| environment, or lifestyle to an extreme outside of normal
| human experience based on trying to optimize a single
| variable in attempt to be healthier, it is almost guaranteed
| to backfire.
| rhinoceraptor wrote:
| It seems like it's a similar thing to sugar. The optimal amount
| of alcohol or sugar is not absolutely zero, a lot of foods we eat
| that are healthy have them, just at much lower concentrations and
| lower amounts.
|
| A glass of orange juice is about the equivalent sugar of two
| large oranges, without any of the fiber to slow the digestion.
| Similarly, a beer is about the equivalent ethanol of an entire
| loaf of bread, without any of the fiber to slow the digestion.
| levocardia wrote:
| No mention at all of the strongest type of study on alcohol
| consumption: Mendelian randomization studies [1]. These avoid the
| problems of self-report, recall bias, etc., that confound most
| nutritional epidemiology.
|
| [1] e.g.
| https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
| imoverclocked wrote:
| Policy is always a hard thing to write because of its vast
| numbers of people trying to interpret it. Writing a policy that
| states "no alcohol is the best" will look like an overly
| draconian statement to a country that has a problem with alcohol
| consumption.
|
| Alcohol is largely normalized as a party element in the US as
| opposed to just being an extra flavor at the dinner table. IMHO,
| the culture around drinking is likely what needs to change. Maybe
| we can shift from the "yes or no" category of the world to the "a
| sip might be nice to pair with X" model instead.
| ls612 wrote:
| Or maybe people learned about the ills of Prohibition in school
| and have bad memories of the War on Drugs and so a policy
| statement like that can sound like a threat of things to come?
|
| That's what gets me about all this alcohol discourse, _we tried
| this already_. We passed a damn constitutional amendment, then
| repealed it 13 years later because it was so bad. Something
| something learning from the past or doomed to repeat it.
| ramijames wrote:
| It's a poison. Of course it isn't good for you. Jfc.
| goatlover wrote:
| Is it though? Are you saying it has no positive benifits,
| because lots of consumers and researchers would argue
| otherwhise.
|
| Anyway, I don't care. If I want to have a drink, I will,
| because I enjoy alcohol. Not always, but sometimes. What does
| irritate me are the teetotallers. They lost the argument over
| prohibition, thankfully. But they never went away.
|
| The war on drugs people are losing the same argument.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-06-07 23:01 UTC)