We are ultimately all going to die of something. The answer is to make informed risk decisions so as to enjoy life, not wrap yourself up in a bubble and do nothing fun for 100 years. Alcohol increases your dementia risk. Tasty food increases your heart disease risk. Live long enough and you're probably guaranteed to get cancer.
I don't think that the "I drink wine because it is healthy", is the main driver of people's drinking--not even the fifth.
After all, I have yet to see a sober person picking up drinking wine because it is good for their health.
Let's have a sober conversation on this: I drink a glass or half a glass of wine most nights because I like it.
I think some people who like wine, would drink less often if they considered it bad for you. But since "it's good" you might as well drink every night.
I have never heard of them, those are the mythical beings nobody has ever seen.
If it were true, the opposite would be likely true as well (I don't like red wine, but I drink if because it is good for my health).
The negative effects one could operate on are putting on weight, not sleeping as well at night, bad breath, sleepiness, but not a fear-mongering article in which it is said that any amount of alcohol increases the risk of dementia.
I am talking about a glass of wine; if the current regime is a bottle of wine a day, the whole equation changes.
It's the same as cigarette taxes, abortion laws, and so on. People claim nobody changes their mind because of it, but statistically the impact is significant.
You cannot compare the cigarette tax to a study saying that even minimal alcohol consumption increases the risk of dementia. If you increase the price of wine 5x, I am sure fewer people would drink, but that's a very wild extrapolation, context-wise, of this conversation.
The same applies to abortion laws: not even in my wildest dreams would I compare their effects on abortion rates to the effects on behavior that the results of the study discussed in this thread would cause.
I guess I was imprecise with my language and did not think about the father-in-law effect. He surely responded extremely quickly to the study just published. However, I would advise waiting for further studies, replications, etc.
Let me rephrase it: I doubt that the results of this study will change the minds of a significant number of people who enjoy drinking a glass of wine every now and then.
I think the reason why wine/alcohol was deemed good for health was that the study was on US population who are generally overweight, and thus usually have arterial plaque narrowing their arteries.
Alcohol acts as a blood thinner, thus it was healthy for the unhealthy. But it was not, and has never been, healthy for the healthy.
Moderate drinking — defined as one drink per day for healthy women and two drinks per day for healthy men — is widely considered safe. But to date, the health effects of alcohol have never been tested in a long-term, randomized trial.
that sentence was written as skepticism of the health benefits to drinking wine. But if the health effects of alcohol have never been studied long term, I don't see how you can claim health benefits are a myth.
But wine has alcohol. And even if it actually were good for cardiac health, people should be aware that they are trading cardiac health for dementia risk.
>It is certainly still possible that wine in moderation is good for cardiac health.
Fairly sure that is mostly debunked, or at least grossly misleading, as the quantity of wine required to see cardiovascular benefit is high enough that any benefit is outweighed by the negative effects of the large quantity of wine required.
Everything in moderation is a strategy to minimize risks with limited information.
When you have information, you probably wouldn't say "cigarettes in moderation". You'd say "avoid smoking" as much as possible. It looks like alcohol is headed in that direction.
You are welcomed to wait for more data, or to choose to continue to drink (to your chosen level of "in moderation") with or without more data. But the guidelines are probably going to end up being "avoid drinking alcohol".
The things that we enjoy in life are mostly driven by habit. Best to drive your habits to things that are good for you.
Also, the world has changed so much in the last 5 years. It's not clear to me that radical life extension won't happen in the next 50 years. Best to get on the right side of the escape velocity.
To be fair, there are many things which are enjoyable and have very low hazard, or perhaps even positive effects. Exercising and socializing with friends are the ones that most stick out to me.
Right, and for us to make "informed" risk decisions we should see articles like this one that provide the information with which to make decisions. I don't understand why you're using such a passive aggressive tone since this fits with your vision.
Nah im sorry. First: Any amount is bad. DO NOT DRINK.
Second, and this comment highlights it perfectly: The more serious problem is not the wine glass per week, it's that drinkers instantly try to "put things into perspective" regarding their own consumption. There are 0 addicts that tell you their honest consumption amount and thus it will continue to rise until you are at serious health hazards.
If you enjoy tricking your brain into releasing endorphins to feel good take up sports, watch a horror movie or engage in any kind of challenge.
Everything in moderation, including moderation.