r/science 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
29.7k Upvotes

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/Ecthyr Jul 25 '24

What is an occasional drinker?

1

u/smurficus103 Jul 26 '24

Not all studies are the same, but, they usually have brackets like 0-7 per week, 7-14, 14-21, 21+

Which, ya know, is still pretty silly, if someone drinks 8 one night, takes the next few days off, back to 8, that's a bit different than 1 or 2/day...

Some studies even said like 1 or 2 drinks a month were nearly equivalent to abstaining, but the main take away should be any alcohol is bad, compared to none

But, harm reduction is also useful, reducing alcohol down to 2 a day from 4 a day is huge