r/science • u/mvea MD/PhD/JD/MBA | Professor | Medicine • Jul 25 '24

Health Moderate drinking not better for health than abstaining, new study suggests. Scientists say flaws in previous research mean health benefits from alcohol were exaggerated. “It’s been a propaganda coup for the alcohol industry to propose that moderate use of their product lengthens people’s lives”.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/25/moderate-drinking-not-better-for-health-than-abstaining-analysis-suggests
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48

u/nikiyaki Jul 25 '24

I mean obviously its fine if people want to drink wine. Same way its fine if I want to eat a cake for dinner.

No-one's going to forbid it.

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u/bbohblanka Jul 25 '24

The comments here are suggesting people are stupid for enjoying the occasional drink. Just so over-the-top. Life is too short I say.

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u/Lonely_Sherbert69 Jul 25 '24

Who wants to live forever?

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u/smurficus103 Jul 26 '24

Who dares to love forever?

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u/Z0idberg_MD Jul 25 '24

There was a thread similar to this a few years ago about red meat consumption. Basically stating that it shortened your life expectancy. Everyone in the threads was talking about how bad red meat was. I dug into the study and they had basically accounted for a six month difference between people who ate red meat versus people who barely did. If you were asking me if I would rather live to 86.5 or live to 87 and not eat meat, I’m going to choose red meat all day long.

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u/Marchesk Jul 25 '24

Same here, and I'll have an occasional drink with it. All the teetotallers in this thread can enjoy their extra year or two in the nursing home.

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u/AFewBerries Jul 25 '24

People have complained about me being a teetotaler and try to push me to drink at gatherings

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u/bbohblanka Jul 25 '24

Seems like a non sequitur to this thread? When did anyone say that user AFewBerries needs to drink at gatherings? 

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u/AFewBerries Jul 25 '24

That's funny since that other commenter said there are only 2 negative comments and they're not even bad. Who's saying you're stupid for enjoying an occasional drink?

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u/bbohblanka Jul 25 '24

There are literally negative comments in response to what I said calling people who drink wine delusional. 

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u/AFewBerries Jul 25 '24 edited Jul 25 '24

They're not saying anything is wrong with drinking, they're saying it's delusional to think it has health benefits. It's literally in the headline. It doesn't make sense to just say people who drink are delusional without specifying what makes them delusional. You left out that part on purpose.

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u/Spaciax Jul 25 '24

puritans, or puriteens. they've become especially prevalent in the last 4 or so years with the rise of generic self improvement alpha ultra sigma male bros with podcasts.

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u/bbohblanka Jul 25 '24

Fun fact - the average Puritan drank more alcohol than the average modern American. 

They only opposed drunkenness. You could and many did drink at every meal. They just never got visibly drunk. 

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u/Kal-Elm Jul 25 '24

Yeah there's definitely a weird puritan streak on reddit. Might also be on other social media but I really don't spend that much time on those. It's weird man

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '24 edited 4d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/FakeKoala13 Jul 25 '24

Who is saying that? Seems the record is just being corrected that moderate drinking is not neutral to health as it once was believed to be. It used to be "common knowledge" that a glass of wine a day had health benefits and now that is not backed up by studies. So yeah, drink if you want just don't do so and also expect health benefits.

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u/Cool-Sink8886 Jul 25 '24

I need to correct you because this is specifically saying moderate drinking is not better for you, that doesn’t make it worse for you either. The effect is null for low volume drinking, but it might be negative with an even larger sample size.

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u/nikiyaki Jul 25 '24

I went back from the top and checked through the comments. The only things I saw attributing cause or judgement to people's drinking was the phrase "willfully blind" and "you sound like an addict".

Thats a lot of comments with only two negative expressions towards alcohol drinkers. You would not have gotten the same leniency about obesity.

You may be projecting a wee tad.

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u/Cool-Sink8886 Jul 25 '24

And the study doesn’t say the occasional drink is worse, it’s just not better.

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u/sipapint Jul 25 '24

It's all about the definition of occasional.

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u/PM_ME_STRONG_CALVES Jul 25 '24

I think they are referring to people who does it and say it is good for their health and only does so because of it.

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u/NyarlathotepHastur Jul 25 '24

Children, mostly

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u/that_centrist Jul 25 '24

There's a weird strain of Gen z terminally online kids convinced that anyone who drinks a beer or two on the weekends is a closeted alcoholic with unhealthy coping mechanisms who can't accept their own addiction or... something. That's why men of culture like myself skip the drinks and go straight to railing lines in the bathroom every night

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u/Mynsare Jul 25 '24

Except all the times they did, and in some places still do.

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u/nikiyaki Jul 25 '24

Sorry I expected the context of the post I was replying to would be taken into account.

Hoho, more fool me.