No level of alcohol is good for you - not even moderate

I hate it when the science turns on us.

Only heavy drinking is helpful.

Curious why fermented liquid from grain and fruit is so toxic

And yet the French and Italians live longer than your average American.

Good thing I drink copious amounts of booze every day.

I want this life to be over

I hate it.

If they say no amount of coffee is healthy they can fuck right off.

That was... sobering.

r4, they eat better quality meat, fish, and produce than we do. Not as many fast food franchises.

It really shortened the Queen Mother’s life!

The Italian government recommends two glasses of wine a day.

The fermentation from the wine is beneficial. Also Resveratrol is a polyphenol that has anti-inflammatory properties. The problem is the alcohol itself. Any alcohol is toxic not just to the liver but to the microbiome. Alcohol also disrupts your circadian rhythm and sleep. Even though alcohol relaxes and may help you fall asleep, the quality of sleep is never normal or restful, which is how people end up with hang-overs.

Awwwwwwwwww…fuck ‘em!!!

It's heart-healthy!

I don't drink any more. I don't any less, either.

Someone told me I should drink Canada Dry. So I went up there.

[quote] among older adults in Britain ... the risk was accentuated primarily in those who had existing health problems or who lived in low-income areas.

Translation: drinking is risky for sickly, poor people in a nation known world-wide for its drunkards.

Shacrilege!

I'm 71 years old and I've been enjoying a nightly vodka gimlet for 50 of those years. I feel fine. So fuck this study.

Only for the feeble and the poors.

I got more out of alcohol than alcohol got out of me.

The Italian Government is drunk by 1pm, take their siesta, wake up and start drinking again.

Just smoke copious amounts of pot, silly!

Life expectancy:

Italy: 83.87 years

Spain: 83.80

France: 83.46

USA: 79.46

Booze was the LEAST of my problems.

Thank god for health studies.

I quit a while back. I do THC only.

Spend some time in assisted living/nursing care. You don't want to live that long. Drink up bitches!

R23, Italians live the longest because of the gorgeous scenery, the best food in the world, gorgeous men and an inherent joy for life. They take long lunches and dinner with family and friends. They also cherish their elders, like Nonna.

This is just a correlation study, if I understand correctly, meaning that the finding is that there is something about non-drinkers which makes them better off than drinkers. That something could be alcohol, and it could be something else. Non-drinkers and drinkers are not the same, in more than just the consumption of alcohol.

The only way to determine if alcohol is detrimental is to have two similar test groups, all non-drinkers, and then have one group start drinking. Since that's not going to happen, we may never know for sure.

R29. Correct. And we have no idea how much the people studied actually drink. Unless you are a total mom-drinker or a bottle-a-day alcoholic, drinking often depends on circumstances and the occasion. Most people are not going to self-report accurately and probably significantly understate their drinking.

These types of studies are generally pretty worthless. In the end, it’s best to ignore the studies and rely on science and common sense. On one hand, alcohol is often enjoyable. On the other hand, it’s a poison your body has to remove. Deciding how much to consume should be based on those considerations and on this (likely) worthless study.

oh please, you only live once...one glass isn't gonna kill you

[quote]that there is something about non-drinkers which makes them better off than drinkers

Physical activity and eating more vegetables? As opposed to shit you buy at a fast food place because you’re tanked?

Fuck that! I'm still having two Godfathers a night until the day I kick it!

Just look at ‘ole Trump! A notorious lifelong NON-drinker and a complete picture of health!

[quote]Just look at ‘ole Trump! A notorious lifelong NON-drinker and a complete picture of health!

People in the highest income quintile have a substantially higher probability of reaching age 75 than those in the lowest quintile, so another factor in play.

My grandmother drank a glass of white wine every night, with a small dinner.

She lived to be 100.

Fuck this study.

Her motto wss "everything in moderation."

That's the real secret.

That's because your grandmother did it the right way:

[quote]The new study found that while older adults who were light drinkers faced higher risks of dying if they had health-related or socioeconomic risk factors, drinking mostly wine and drinking only with meals moderated the risk, particularly of death from cancer.

It’s the NY Times. So this means 1) you can drink a bottle of wine a day and 2) here’s why this is bad for Kamala Harris.

Once I started wearing a fancy smartwatch and saw how my vitals,.such as heart rate variability and sleep scores, were tanking while I was drinking, I cut down to wine and "one and done" cocktails.

OP, I know this and wish I could quit. Been trying for over 30 years. On Naltrexone now and doing ok but know another relapse is around the bend.

What did the grape say when he read this? Nothing, just let out a little whine.

Dad?

R23 It helps having universal healthcare.

Please, wine is basically food where I come from.

Too much of anything can kill you. Hell, people die from drinking too much water. It's called 'water intoxication'. A toddy now and then is not going to hurt you.

R39, same here. I wasn't drinking for a couple of weeks and noticed my heart rate was lower than when I did drink. I had some drinks during the Olympics and my resting heart rate was raised by about 7 beats per minute. Back to no drinking for me, at least until Labor Day. I may allow myself something to celebrate the unofficial end of Summer.

I NEVER drink alcohol or anything with calories. I like to eat my calories not drink them.

R47 is one those people everyone laughs about when she leaves the room.

Dear Lord in Heaven!

They just make this SHIT up as they go along.

Every 2 weeks, a new study about come out on Coffee; coffee good then coffee bad!!

Coffee always good—the elixir of life!

This doesn't fit the data. Have you been to England lately. It's full of old drunks.

but some people always say caffeine is bad for you

Truly, not all that far away from taking a swig out of the alcohol in your medicine cabinet . would you do that?

R47 feel free to unclench.

You drunk yet?

I used to average 4 to 5 glasses a wine a week; maybe more.

I noticed during the pandemic I had stopped. I didn't set out to quit.

Now, I drink occasionally but I don't miss it and I feel great.

Just say no.

One day they extol the virtues of NoFap. The next day they say wanking is good for the prostate.

WHAT’S A GUY TO DO

It's been reported in the news for many years that people who live to be 100 or over enjoyed a glass of red wine or two everyday.

People have been drinking wine since BC.

Horshefeathersh, OP!

One of the great things about being old is that you don't give a shit about what people say.

[quote]People have been drinking wine since BC

Before Cristal?

[quote] oh please, you only live once...one glass isn't gonna kill you

R31 Maybe you shouldn’t say that 20 times a day.

Eh. My country scores very well for longevity and very high for consumption rates per capita. Seeing people drunk, though, is quite rare because drinking is a social thing. To be drunk is bad form and means that person is not contributing to the occasion but instead is a nuisance, disrupting the ambience, and leaving someone to walk the drunk home and put him to bed.

Dumbasses on this thread, the reason France, Italy, and Spain have higher life expectancies than the US is that they all have universal, publicly funded health care. As does every other economically advanced country.

And yet, R66, while the 73 countries that have universal health care (69% of global population) have average life expectancy significantly higher than those that do not, there is great variation with those countries'life expectancies. Poland has a rate of alcohol consumption 1.5x or 2x that of China, and yet both countries with Universal Health Care systems score 60th and 66th respectively, behind the US at 57th, and ahead of Argentina at 75th in longevity, with a good Universal Health Care system and a fairly high alcohol consumption rate comparable to Spain's. Only the U.S. among those countries doesn't have UHC, but it's not a simple correlation of UHC = high longevity, nor of UHC + low alcohol consumption rate = high longevity.

It's not as simple a correlation as you suggest to the 'dumbasses on this thread.'

[quote]On average, life expectancy at birth and healthy life expectancy was significantly higher (p < 0.001) in countries that have achieved UHC (HALE 68.92 ± 4.04 and LEAB 78.07 ± 4.13) than in countries that are yet to achieve UHC (HALE 58.23 ± 7.66 and LEAB 66.77 ± 8.59).

Not r66, but I think the correlation is just fine for the 'dumbasses on this thread.'

"Overall, life expectancy in countries and territories with- publicly funded health care (Mean (m) = 76.7 years) was significantly longer compared to countries and territories without- publicly funded health care (m = 66.8 years, P < 0.0001)."

Holding all else constant, life expectancy is a whopping 10 years higher in countries with universal health care as opposed to those without. That is huge!

[quote]And yet the French and Italians live longer than your average American

They also walk everywhere even the really old people and eat small portions not giant bowls of pasta like Americans.

[quote] To be drunk is bad form and means that person is not contributing to the occasion but instead is a nuisance, disrupting the ambience, and leaving someone to walk the drunk home and put him to bed.

Yeah, in the states we call that baby sitting. And no one likes that either. I am totally done with friends that expect this. You get one or two times if you need help, if it's a pattern, never going out drinking with you again. Or to a party for that matter.

OP is stealth marketing for the new Max TV show, "Sobriety In the City" about Carrie Nation's wild sex life.

I am the babysitter, I make sure they get home safe

They also said smoking is bad for you, now everyone in America is the size of a Volkswagen.

R5 is a married lesbian, finally telling us her truth.

They count homicides as deaths, the US is good to go with that, I wonder what it would be without the killings, where would we rank then. So it's not just disease.

[quote] Holding all else constant, life expectancy is a whopping 10 years higher in countries with universal health care as opposed to those without. That is huge!

I would wager that the countries with universal health care are all first-world, highly competitive and rich countries. Those without tend to be poorer or even third world. U.S. is the outlier, but we would be lumped in with countries where people die from treatable illness all the time. In other words, remove the U.S. from the second group and let's see where the life expectancy lands. It'd look like the Middle Ages.

Your body doesn’t go for booze and dope

R77, the study I cited controls for all those variables. And even controlling for economic factors, education levels, etc., life expectancies in countries with universal health care are 10 years higher than in countries without.

R4 They both have mostly-free government health care.

Oops, I see that's been mentioined.

Or mentioned.

[quote] They both have mostly-free government health care.

Oh honey, it's not free in the slightest...

It's legal. End of story.

I've been at the side of many a death bed and one thing a lot of people request is a glass of wine or a beer. And these people were not alcoholics. Who am I to say no?

I am so tired of the preaching that everything you consume is bad. That may be so but you're going to die anyway and if you enjoy it so what? As long as it doesn't hurt anyone else, okay.

Isn't that part of the fun of drinking? Knowing it's bad for you to some degree? That was part of what made drinking to excess and social smoking so much fun when I was younger.

If they find out coffee or sex is bad, I don't care.

I don't care. Humans have been drinking wine for thousands of years.

The goal shouldn't be the LONGEST possible life; it should be BEST possible life. And alcohol can certainly have a place in that.

The news industry has made quite profitable use of individual medical studies. The public is always eager to accept today's study as The Gospel.

I'm 46 and I've got whiplash from a lifetime of According to a New Study...alcohol is deadly! Alcohol will extend your life! Liquor will kill you but wine will save you! Wine will kill you slowly! All alcohol in moderation will extend your life! Any amount of alcohol will kill you!

Every new study results in new headlines that contradict last week's headlines and people just take it in and worry and feel guilty and anxious until the next anxiety-provoking headline comes out.

Same with salt, same with chocolate, same with butter.

Over and over and over.

The 'funny' thing is that there's one food the jury is not out on—sugar—and the news never really talks about how bad it is for you other than weight gain. Sugar causes full-body chronic inflammation that causes all kinds of disease processes including heart disease that is blamed on dietary fats and cholesterol.

The jury is also in, through long-term repeated and replicated studies, that the only proven way to extend life (if that's your goal) is to underconsume calories. A calorie-restricted diet is a proven pathway to longevity and lower disease rates, and that makes sense because it slows metabolism and it means lower intake of sugar, of fat, of alcohol, of everything. Funny that all the marketing sells more, more, more—bigger portions of food and drink, more protein, more working out and higher-calorie supplements to fuel muscle. All fine as long as people aren't trying to extend their lives.

'You can live forever if you give up everything that makes you WANT to live forever.'

Woody Allen

I don't get much from eating sugar, r90, but it is scary how it is in so many things. I won't buy it or have it in the house (along with white bread/flour/pasta and most processed foods), but regular consumption of it has got to be worse for humans than pretty much anything else that can be ingested save drugs. Sadly, it is everywhere, legal, and most people have emotional ties to foods, along with the fact that processed foods, especially those containing sugar, are clearly so addictive.

Unfortunately, most types of alcohol are a source of sugar/simple carbs. Are alcoholics really addicted to sugar?

R83 Oh, honey, I'll take it.

Enrollment in France’s statutory health insurance system is mandatory. The system covers most costs for hospital, physician, and long-term care, as well as prescription drugs; patients are responsible for coinsurance, copayments, and balance bills for physician charges that exceed covered fees. The insurance system is funded primarily by payroll taxes (paid by employers and employees), a national income tax, and tax levies on certain industries and products. Ninety-five percent of citizens have supplemental insurance to help with these out-of-pocket costs, as well as dental, hearing, and vision care.

R83 Italy:

Italy’s National Health Service automatically covers all citizens and legal foreign residents. It is funded by corporate and value-added tax revenues collected by the central government and distributed to the regional governments, which are responsible for delivering care. Residents receive mostly free primary care, inpatient care, and health screenings. Other statutory benefits include maternity care, specialty care, home care, hospice care, preventive medicine, and pharmaceuticals. Patients make copayments for specialty visits and procedures and some outpatient drugs. Exempt from cost-sharing are pregnant women, patients with HIV or other chronic diseases, and young children and older adults in lower-income households. There are no deductibles for residents. Private health insurance has a limited role in Italy’s health coverage system.

SO TRUE PEOPLE! Alchohol is the DEVIL'S WORK ! After a grueling 2 hrs at my sachet store there is nothing that unwinds me more than a good pussy pet and a bottle of klompotine.

Did they control for homicides? It's not accurate they did not, disease not homicides.

I hear Spain's coverage is pretty good too. And they drink lots of wine, eat a lot of red meat and pork.

Alzheimer's runs in my family, so I'm staying the hell away from booze.

^And sugar, too!

But smoking is still good, right?

My Auntie drank every fucking day. Cocktails before dinner, a beer later, and drank beer all weekend. She was 95 when she died and had dementia for two years prior.

R93 - Wonderful. I'll call AirFrance for you.

[quote]I hear Spain's coverage is pretty good too. And they drink lots of wine, eat a lot of red meat and pork.

At the link is a WHO summary of Spain´s universal health care program.

From a personal perspective it has been terrific for me. You are assigned a community health center in your immediate neighborhood and a doctor equivalent to a primary care physician in the U.S. (you may switch you doctors easily if you wish.) If you have any special conditions (heart disease, HIV, allergies, etc.) you may receive treatment from among various large hospital centers that specialize in those areas. In addition, your age, sex, sexuality, and general health condition prompt notices that you should have these vaccinations made on X date at your local health center, or that you are of an age where you should see a specialist in another area of medicine as an ongoing process of preventative medicine, possibly at yet another hospital center. Appointments are easily made and rescheduled. If the issue is of ongoing concern you will receive follow up annual appointments (or whatever period of time.) You see the same principal people again and again. Switching from one specialist doctor to another takes a little more effort but can be done without problem. You may end up covering a lot of turf with regard to tests here and annual appointments there and vaccinations and your primary doctor in your neighborhood, but every detail of every test and appointment and prescription and follow-up discussion is on the screen of each doctor who sees you (I think nurses and technicians have a more summary level of access to the same records for privacy reasons.) The doctors, nurses, and technicians have been fantastic, very smart, very serious about their work, and very amenable and eager to figure out what will work best for you.

In EU comparative reports of member country health systems, Spain gets a bit of abuse for having a higher than average out-of-pocket expense from its patients. As far as I understand from news reports, this refers to patient % payments for select treatment equipment, but I´ve heard no one complain of their medical costs or prescription costs. There is a farmacy practically on every corner and the pharmacists who are excellent and knowledgeable from my experience have access to your prescriptions and prescription history by touching your health system card on a reader. Different sorts of medicines have different rates of patient cost, but the costs are almost nothing. I get five prescriptions renewed every month (two commonplace cheap meds, and two newer, 'expensive' meds). The charge to my credit card is €4.11 in total. HIV and other meds for infectious diseases and a long list of serious and costly conditions are dispensed free of charge to the patient (Biktarvy, an HIV medicine costs about $8000 per month in the U.S., it is free to Spanish citizens and residents with national health care, but were a visitor covered by private insurance or a given a prescription outside the health system, the cost would be about €200 for one of the most costly medicines in Spain. The costs of medicines are highly regulated to make them available to all.

Wow, very good info on Italy

Wine contains a polyphenol named resveratrol, a natural antioxidant that is beneficial to the coronary arteries. Drinking one glass of wine a day may actually be beneficial despite the alcohol. It's when you start having two or more that it becomes detrimental.

The scientists who conducted this study started out with a bias, which they admitted to. It bothered them for years that moderate drinkers fare better than nondrinkers. They believed it was dangerous to imply drinking had any health benefits at all.

One way to eliminate this gap would be to scrutinize the previous studies' definition of nondrinkers, even though they claimed they eliminated people who were former drinkers and quit due to health problems and did not include them in the non drinking cohort.

Sure enough, the new study found that some non drinkers in previous studies DID have health problems at a slighter higher rate than moderate drinkers. Take those people out, and non drinkers and moderate drinkers are the same.

So they found what they so hoped to find, which can be a problem in scientific research, but whatever.

Historically, the Irish have a reputation that they drink, often to excess.

Today, only half of Ireland drinks.

The other half drinks tomorrow.

Adult children of alcoholics should not be allowed to study drinkers.

I hope a few suffered facial injuries in the course of this witch hunt.

R108, we'd call you "happy" or "a sociable kind of person" with that look in our eyes that conveys the reading, but you're really just a drunk, right?

Does your nose look like a half-eaten overripe tomato yet?

I ask for the case study.

Alcohol must be poison, it tastes so nasty.

My dad is an alcoholic and it’s been a nightmare to deal with all these years.

I know someone who is psycho when he drinks

Do you believe the things people say when they are drunk? Do they reveal their true selves?

IN VINO VERITAS

Christopher Plummer cut through the bs in a very funny interview excerpt

Also nerds might want to know that there are many genetic mechanisms that accelerate either life or death with ETOH exposure. So the ETOH alone is one thing but other factors have cumulative effects and the effect is additive because many different mechanisms are involved. Various different factors of nature or nurture makes the ETOH situation interesting. Humans have self selected over centuries to have the metabolic traits to metabolize ETOH. The advice to smoke copious amounts of weed might be helpful, ETOH is a very toxic drug. Too many molecules are required, the tolerance builds quickly and withdrawal is a life risk in the midst of ignorant people punishing addicts for it by making them go through cold turkey withdrawal as a form of deadly punishment. Just say no

R4, they also use olive oil for cooking and in dressings, not trans fats, their use of dairy and red meat is very moderate, and their diet is extremely low-sugar compared with the US. I mean, you guys have sugar in your BREAD!

Italians maybe, but the French are NOT moderate in their use of dairy. They eat tons of cheese and use butter not olive oil.

It's psychologically good for you.

Food and lifestyle studies are almost universally worthless. They rely on self-reporting, long recognized to be wholly unreliable, of personal habits. They then use the worthless data to draw bold conclusions (often dredged from the data, drastically decreasing the statistical significance of the conclusion) despite an almost unlimited number of confounding factors. This study adds nothing to what we already know: hard science tells us that alcohol is a poison, and experience tells us that many people who consume it in moderation have normal lifespans.

I know a few people who are nasty drunks.

Most heavy drinkers I know are lovely when absolutely smashed, though.