If we only ever did what was healthy we’d all have died of boredom.
Its nerve poison, never been healthy never will be. But its fun, relaxing and great in social settings to get even the most introverted to open up and enjoy socializing.
Yes, this is what one study said. While biologically-speaking even a single drop of alcohol is bad for your body, the return effect from it is socialization, fun (only in moderation). If there were no positive effects it wouldn’t be used. In moderation it would be interesting to see the effects positive emotions have on the wellbeing.
However, that being said it is still the worst drug and it is easily abused. I work as a bartender at a hotspot in my city. The degeneration of the mind many people go through is utterly disgusting. I don’t mind because they’re not me though. But I do mind cleaning up after them in the toilets, or when they proceed to be shitty to those around them… or worse.
It goes the same as for any legal drug: Only use it when you consciously want to. Know when to stop. Drink a glass of water inbetween. And for the love of god don’t make it an excuse to be an ass. If you lose yourself in it you’re losing more than you get. Stopping to use any drug is a good thing.
So many people defending alcohol, it shows the current alcoholism problem.
You get told that something useless (yes alcohol is useless, if you don’t agree you might already have a problem), that causes a LOT of deaths, violence and sickness, is absolutely not healthy (I struggle understanding how people were still believing that shit), and your reaction is to try to argue against it?
Then people panic at the mention of sweeteners because “maybe they’re dangerous”, but for alcohol which is one of the biggest sources of avoidable deaths, nah, it’s probably fine, no matter what science says.
Addiction is a sad thing.
Addiction is a sad thing.
yeah god forbid someone find a bit of pleasure in the smouldering shitscape.
I don’t think the person you’re replying to is talking about somebody having a few drinks on a weekend to take the edge off and relax. They’re talking about addiction, which is not pleasurable.
Alcohol isn’t useless… It can sterilize things and be used as fuel. 😤
If you drink it, tho, you’re just wasting it.
I’m sterilizing my insides! I’m so healthy!
It’s kind of an interesting phenomenon here. There was the news of the flight attendant this week who want allowed on the flight she was planned on because she was too drunk, so much in fact that she crashed her car on the way to the airport, and quite some people were basically “I think being drunk at work is fine”
It’s very much engrained in society still, I mean go out, drink, IDGAF, but don’t hit me with that “it’s actually good for you / this is culture / this world can’t be enjoyed sober” stuff. Quit lying and take some responsibility
Fun fact, it’s outright against the FARs to allow an obviously inebriated person to board an airplane except in an emergency. The pilot can get in trouble for letting a passenger board while shitfaced, let alone a member of the crew.
I had to have a pre employment drug test once, and one part was literally just a breathalyzer. It was vaguely confusing because why wouldn’t you just not drink before a test, but it’s actually for people that are alcoholics and their BAC never goes to 0 or they just drink all the time.
If there is any “health” benefit I could see the stress relief from a couple drinks doing less damage to your body than being in constant heavy stress. Pure speculation tho.
Right that was the old idea, but it’s not accurate.
I thought it was red wine and antioxidants or something like that
My dad lived a healthy lifestyle. Worked out everyday except the weekends; even competed in amateur competitions. He followed all the scientist’s advice and ate what was healthy and stayed away from what wasn’t. Still got Stage 4 cancer and died before his 69th birthday.
Point is: we’re still going to die, no matter how healthy we are. If you want to drink, do it responsibly (don’t drive, or text). Enjoy as much of this shitty life as you can, while you can.
Yep, as the saying goes, living will kill you.
My approach is moderation. Enjoy life, enjoy those guilty pleasures, but, do it in moderation.
Everything in moderation, including moderation
Right, so I should do some moderate excess then?
Yes but avoid heroin. Some things are in excess even at the minimum possible amount.
I’ll drink to that! (Or anything really)
Is that a saying? Does anyone other than yourself say it?
Yes. It’s a saying. All things in moderation including moderation.
Yes I’ve heard of that one but that’s not the “saying” we were talking about.
I’ve heard it before, so I’d say yes.
Same with people who smoke or eat bacon every day and live past 100. It’s an odd crapshoot.
I’ve seen it said that your date of death (if natural) is somewhat set in stone by genetics, but the condition you’ll spend your final years in will be the result of your lifestyle instead. So living to excess will fuck you up in your later years but won’t necessarily kill you any sooner.
20-30% of lifespan is based on genetics and 20-30% of health in later years as well. The rest is all lifestyle.
This is controlling for external elements like accidents or disasters.
So somewhat genetics is true but it can be overcome with lifestyle to some degree. Figuring out which lifestyle choices is tricky and one of those times where sciences’ replication crisis makes it all muddled.
Advancement in medicine also plays a role because it can reign in some poor lifestyle choices that were death spirals just a generation prior.
Oh no. My grandmother is 92 and my grandfather is 93 and my great grandfather passed at 102.
I don’t know if I want to live that far. I better start drinkin’.
Getting cancer is largely based on genetics.
certain cancers like breast or thyroid and certain stomach are genetic.
For everything else age is a huge factor. It’s usually in late 60s a person gets more chances of cancer as your cells age and create mutations.
Certain life styles such as HPV are on the rise because of …well basically free loving in the 70s/80s prior to the vaccine. This is why you’re suddenly seeing a huge spike in throat cancer right now in 60 yr olds. Especially men and a lot of women are getting cervical cancer right now as gardisil was not around when they were most sexually active.
And then you have certain hernias as you age are likely to happen that can lead to stomach cancer as your cells will make more mistakes to try to heal these hernias.
Basically your cells heal. And each time they heal they increase in chances of mutation of becoming cancer. This becomes even more so as you age.
Waiting for all the COVID cancers, wildfire smoke cancers, etc. in 60 years
This argument is so odd and it depends on what you take away from it.
Is the message “some people still get sick, so what’s the point”…that’s very misguided.
The point is that all the lifestyle actions you take, give you the best chances, but there are no guarantees with anything in life. You’re still playing the odds, but trying to stack them in your favour as much as possible. If you prepare for an interview, you’re not guaranteed to get the job; but you prepare to give yourself the best chance you can. You can’t decide to do nothing because the outcome is not guaranteed. Concluding “why even bother” is such odd thinking.
Sorry about your dad though, RIP.
The message is meant to be that you shouldn’t waste your time chasing the perfect healthy lifestyle, because in the end you’re going to die. Instead, do things that you enjoy while you have time to enjoy them right now.
Nothing in the above should suggest to go buck wild and live an unhealthy lifestyle. For example, despite my experience with my dad and his chase for the healthy lifestyle, I too exercise, eat healthier, and drink in moderation. I’m certainly not trying to stave off death (who wants to live forever?). Rather, I’m trying to make the best of the life I have so I can enjoy time with my family.
That’s the point I was trying to make. 😊
Some things will cause you to probably get cancer like using tobacco heavily but there isn’t any way to make yourself healthier really, if you’re going to have a major medical problem like random cancer it’s going to happen. Being healthier just makes it easier to resist it or have a better chance of survival.
Me. I want to live forever, quietly, watching and knowing what where how and when we end up doing whatever we are going to do.
No shit sherlock. Everyone has a different tolerance, sensitivity and trigger points for all kind of problems to appear out of nowhere. But this advice is bullshit.
Having hard facts and learning how it affects the body goes further than “enjoy life, my granny smoked till she was 100 years old, I should be fine with 1 cigarette a day” kind of thinking.
If you ever have any accident by accident, your chances of survival or recovery is diminished for your use of harmful substances. Everything is perfect until it isn’t.You’re supposed to use science as a basis of making things more manageable when dealing with uncertainty. But, you’ll then blame the doctors, saying how you had no any other problems with you and how healthy you were.
You’re the kind of people in hospitals who say “I’ve never had a pill in my life and all these doctors are crazy psychopaths that say crazy things to make money off of me”
Reddit seems to be leaking.
Dude. You’re reading a lot more into what you’re replying to, than what is there to be read. I bet “Reddit seems to be leaking” follows you around, huh?
You’re right, Reddit is leaking.
~You’re Reddit if you’re wondering.~
Ya everything is probability and risk factors, nothing is certain. Life is for living, might as well have a good time (within reason/with moderation of course).
Cancer is a bitch because even if we cured everything but cancer…we would still get cancer eventually. Cancer comes for even the immortal. Without that cure, we all would eventually get Cancer.
Alcohol is a carcinogen. No two ways about it. There aren’t really “safe” levels for a toxin; it’s not a matter of what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, it’ll gradually and insidiously weaken you by ways of fatty liver disease and worse.
There aren’t really “safe” levels for a toxin
There is, actually. Everything is toxic if you take enough of it. The only difference between what is called “toxic” and is not called “toxic” is that what is called “toxic” has a very low threshold before it is toxic to us.
Now I’m not here to defend alcohol, but that statement is simply wrong.
That is, in fact, not correct. Yes, there are things that have thresholds where they are harmless (e.g. salt), but alcohol isn’t one of them. Alcohol, like many other toxic substances, does not have a threshold below, which it is harmless.
The WHO says the damage starts from the first drop: https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health
Everything has a threshold from a toxicology point of view.
Absolutely. Every. Single. Substance.
I haven’t read the article you linked, but it does not matter, as a drop is not an indivisible unit of alcohol. It could already be above the threshold.
If your body accidentally absorbs a single molecule of ethanol, you’ll be just fine.
Good to know that you, random keyboard scientist, know so much more about this topic than the WHO. So much in fact that you don’t even have to check the source.
Let’s form a religion around your wisdom. All hail iglou!
Alright, I read your article. All it says it that there is no study determining a threshold. That’s your source?
Meanwhile, here is the ECHA page for ethanol, the alcohol most present in alcoholic beverages and the only one “safe” for consumption. You will there find various toxicity thresholds established by studies, although none on humans. But unless you are willing to argue that humans don’t have thresholds for alcohol while mice, rats and monkeys do, that doesn’t make a difference to the point.
No need to form a religion, it’s just documented science.
Rather than hailing me, you could learn a bit about toxicology. Because the fact that everything has a threshold is pretty basic.
That was an absolute shit paper. Their methodolgy was horrible and their statistics were even worse. It’s seriously so flawed that I gave myself an migraine from eyerolling so hard.
Sunlight is also a carcinogen, but that doesn’t mean you always stay indoors.
No, of course not. You should apply sunscreen when outdoors
There’s no “safe” level of sunlight, even if you wear sunscreen.
10 minutes of sun per day is typically less likely to give you cancer than 0 minutes. Vitamin D (and other compounds involved in the synthesis from cholesterol that you won’t get in supplements) upregulate DNA repair polymerases that protect against carcinogens. Of course after a few minutes the costs of UV exposure outweight this benefit though.
Yeah but you don’t have to drink alcohol to live.
Going outside is unavoidable and using sunscreen, long clothing and a hat, protects you from a lot of the radiation damage.
Most outdoor activities are avoidable. Avoiding those activities entirely is safer than wearing protection.
Indoor humans represent!
If outside was completely avoidable, I absolutely would.
To each their own.
Personally, I don’t mind sitting outside in the sun. It’s a good place to have a beer.
That is a highly myopic, frankly stupid, opinion that isn’t even yours - you’re just repeating things that you heard.
The deleterious health effects from not getting sun exposure vastly outweigh the potential DNA damage from sun exposure.
I take plenty of vitamin D every day
Can you quote the section of my comment that has gotten you so upset please?
I want to know exactly which bit of what I wrote instigated this response, so I know how to reply properly.
What deleterious health effects from not getting sun exposure?
Vitamin D deficiency. Rickets. Osteopathic problems. Seasonal Affective Disorder. Weight gain. Etc.
https://distance.physiology.med.ufl.edu/what-are-the-effects-of-not-getting-enough-sunlight/
They make vitamin D pills
You can get the RDA of vitamin D from a healthy diet, without need for sunlight.
Weight gain is caused by diet and lack of exercise, not lack of sunlight.
SAD can be treated with non-carcinogenic lamps.
Try living with out getting any sunlight
You could certainly try to keep your sunlight exposure to a bare minimum.
Or you can just weigh the inherent risks of doing things you enjoy.
And exactly no one (in the article or this thread) said you should never drink alcohol.
It’s just that for a very long time we were told that some alcohol was healthy, when in fact it is causing cancer (among other things). That sounds like some releveant info to me when I make the decision to drink alcohol or not.
Here’s my favorite paper on the subject about the benefits/cost of alcohol usage by cardiologists from 2007.
https://www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacc.2007.04.089
Alcohol and Cardiovascular Health: The Razor-Sharp Double-Edged Sword
Despite what the linked article claims, it’s still not clear whether alcohol’s known cancer risk is outweighed by any health benefits (for example, reducing the risk of stroke/CVD). At least one recent paper concluded that light or moderate alcohol use does reduce overall mortality.
Compared with lifetime abstainers, current infrequent, light, or moderate drinkers were at a lower risk of mortality from all causes [infrequent—hazard ratio: 0.87; 95% confidence interval: 0.84 to 0.90; light: 0.77; 0.75 to 0.79; moderate 0.82; 0.80 to 0.85], CVD, chronic lower respiratory tract diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, and influenza and pneumonia. Also, light or moderate drinkers were associated with lower risk of mortality from diabetes mellitus and nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, or nephrosis. In contrast, heavy drinkers had a significantly higher risk of mortality from all causes, cancer, and accidents (unintentional injuries).
E: Good thing I didn’t put any money into this, as it seems I was wrong about this study.
I am willing to bet that this study is one of the many that interpret the so called J-curve as meaning “moderate use is healthy”. These studies fail to take in consideration that some/many of those who don’t use alcohol at all or use very little, have some kind of medical condition that prevents them from consuming alcohol, but also increases their risk of death. This group of people skews the data to look like a J-curve. Handle this group correctly in the data and you get a straight line.
This was a prospective study that looked at lifelong abstainers, not people who gave up drinking. Furthermore, reduced overall mortality was found in light/moderate drinkers even after excluding participants with pre-existing conditions.
That’s the correct way to control for the issue you raised.
From a statistical design perspective, that was a really well done analysis.
What if moderate drinking keeps my stress levels lower, is it healthier then?
Healthier than what? There are many ways to reduce stress that are healthier. If you refuse to learn how to have fun without alcohol then I guess it is, but you have eliminated a lot of better options already.
I guess I’m just wondering if it’s stress or alcohol that’s more dangerous to my body
Of course there is sometimes people don’t have the time and money. Can’t someone have some beers while gaming with their kid?
Meditation is one way to lower stress. 5 minutes a day is better than nothing, and it costs €0.00 / second and has no negative side effects.
Some people don’t get that 5 minutes of quiet away from their kids to meditate properly. There’s no single solution that is available to everyone.
One of the things I sorely miss since becoming a parent. Literally not a moment’s rest. I may have a few minutes here and there, but you never know when the next thing is coming and getting that meditation interrupted is way worse than not trying to meditate in the first place.
« Meditation » drives me crazy. To each it’s own. Every one needs to find it’s thing. Be it drugs for some of us.
The relationship between alcohol and stress is very complex, and if I’m not mistaken research shows that it can reduce resilience to stress. I didn’t find dedicated studies on the issue quickly though. The ones I did find stayed that alcohol consumption for stress relief is associated with a higher risk for alcohol use disorder.
Personally, when I was still drinking, I avoided this scenario and never drank when stressed because of that issue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xU5yIH_P9I talks about the issue, I guess there are more out there and it’s not a scientific source. But maybe it’s a start
Supposedly most of the benefit alcohol brings is in fact the idea that it helps people spend more time socializing, which has enormous benefits. A little poison for a lot of community can be a good trade.
Long term you’re probably more stressed. It helps in the moment, but you’ll be more stressed and anxious when you’re not drinking, plus it raises your blood pressure, so if you’re worried about a stress induced cardiovascular event, alcoholism probably making it worse.
Actually, its incredibility healthy to apply red wine to one’s eyes in the morning for 15 minutes every day. Mostly because reasons.
Ok, but it’s fun. Social animals like humans do a lot of unnecessary shit just for the hell of it.
I am however in favour of banning alcohol for obese people since they clearly can’t care for themselves and shouldn’t be considered adults.
Obesity is a chronic complex disease. It is not a choice. Keep your ignorance to yourself instead of fueling liberticide ideas with it.
What a pathetic being you are. Visibly alcohol damaged your brain a bit too much if you are fine with horribly wrong and stupid ideas like that.
Yeah, those scientists are just butthurt about never getting invited back to any parties. 🖕🏽
Lol. This take feels really butt hurt
