Since it is Friday, let's talk about alcohol, eh?

Two weeks ago we had the following thread entitled :"Science weighs in: No amount of alcohol is safe"
https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2146758,2146758#msg-2146758

There were a couple of statements in the report that particularly caught my eye.

"Alcohol was the leading risk factor for disease and premature death in men and women between the ages of 15 and 49 worldwide in 2016, accounting for nearly one in 10 deaths, according to the study, published Thursday in the journal The Lancet."

When I first read that (skimming a bit too fast) was OMG, that's awful. Ten percent! My second thought was "wait a minute, that can't be right."

The key that I skipped over was the age range. Between the ages of 15 and 49, most people don't die of anything. For those that do, yes, a significant portion of them die of alcohol related causes. I'm guessing teenagers who drink and drive. That tells us nothing about whether light drinking is bad for your health. It tells us that wrapping your car around a telephone pole is bad for your health.

The second statement that I had a problem with was: "The most surprising finding was that even small amounts of alcohol use contribute to health loss globally," said senior study author Emmanuela Gakidou, a professor at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. "We're used to hearing that a drink or two a day is fine. But the evidence is the evidence...."


I have posted before that articles about how coffee is good/bad for you, or eggs are good/bad for you, or cheese ...... should basically be ignored. The differences are almost always so vanishingly small that frankly it doesn't matter one way or the other. For normal healthy people, only two pieces of advice are needed. Eat a reasonable moderate healthy diet (low on meat, low on heavily processed foods, and don't eat too much), and get off your butt and get some exercise.

Last week the NYTimes ran an article discussing this exact article. It goes into some detail about the difficulties of doing this sort of meta-analysis of combining past studies. If you are into that sort of thing, I recommend the article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/28/upshot/alcohol-health-risks-study-worry.html

If you don't much care, or have already hit the NYT paywall this month, here's the stats relating to the "No Amount of Alcohol Is Safe" story.
[white space added for clarity]
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The news warns that even one drink per day carries a risk. But how great is that risk?

For each set of 100,000 people who have one drink a day per year, 918 can expect to experience one of the 23 alcohol-related problems in any year.

Of those who drink nothing [in a similar population of 100,000 non-drinkers], 914 can expect to experience a problem.

This means that 99,082 are unaffected, and 914 will have an issue no matter what.

Only 4 in 100,000 people who consume a drink a day may have a problem caused by the drinking, according to this study.
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That's it folks. Four in a hundred thousand per year. Meanwhile, four in ten will eventually die of heart disease. Eat less and exercise. Don't worry about the glass of wine, the cup of coffee, or the grilled cheese sandwich. As long as you don't overdo it, it doesn't matter.

Yes, technically, there is no safe level of alcohol consumption, but as was pointed out in the original thread, there is no safe level of driving either. Every single time you ride in a car or even walk along a street, you risk dying in a traffic accident. Yet we are perfectly willing to go out in public and walk and drive.

People are notoriously bad in general at assessing small risks. They will frequently strain at gnats, and swallow camels.

>>Only 4 in 100,000 people who consume a drink a day may have a problem caused by the drinking, according to this study.

Right, and I remember that since the study looked at worldwide data, at least some of the health problems (i.e. tuberculosis) are likely not going to affect people in developed countries anyway.

I would also think that 4 out of 100,000 could fall under reasonable margin of error.

Good points, Bro/Jerry.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics, As Disraeli said (often attributed to Mark Twain). Consider somebody was killed by a drunk driver--whoa, another alcohol-related death!

(Speaking as one who cannot drink in safety. But that's me.)

If alcohol was harmful in a significant way, civilization would've died off shortly after fermentation was discovered.

My friends who died youngish (except for accidents) primarily died of alcoholism. Alcoholism is a tremendous burden on the family and friends.

My friends who were big coke enthusiasts seem to be chronically depressed. Also a burden.

I have no excuse for being a pain in the neck. I was too cheap to buy much drugs and too ornery to suck up for them.