OP is referring to the j-curve historically seen in studies about drinking. Because researchers didn’t control for people who stopped drinking after years of abuse or people who couldn’t drink because of other health issues, it looked like having 0 drinks per day led to worse health outcomes than 1-2 drinks per day. Because of that, many health organizations spent decades telling people that 1-2 drinks per day was better for you than 0 drinks per day.
Someone finally controlled for those variables a few years ago, and the j-curve vanished. Most health organizations now say they’re is no amount of alcohol that is safe to consume.
So it’s got nothing to do with Gen Z drinking habit specifically, and the science has been corrected since. But a lot of people still internalized and parrot the “1-2 drinks is healthy” thing.
i get what you’re saying, but what i’m wondering is, while alcohol is bad for your liver and damages your health in that way, it also leads to social occasions and less loneliness, i guess. so you might have psychological improvements; and was that also tested for?
Alcohol on its own does not cause social occasions or reduce loneliness. Plenty of people drink alone, and plenty of people gather socially without drinking.
That said, while the advice from a health standpoint is that no amount of alcohol is completely safe to drink, humans do risky shit all the time for fun or convenience. More people get hurt in car accidents than develop alcohol-related diseases, but no one is stopping driving. The difference in outcomes between people who have zero drinks per day versus 1-2 drinks per day is much less than the difference between 1-2 and 5+ drinks. So occasional/light drinking is still relatively low-risk. It’s just not actively good for you as previously thought.
Sure. Any driving you do increases your risk of death. But it’s likely you need to drive for other reasons that reduce your risk of death (like buying food).
Drinking is different because no one needs to drink.
It means that any amount of alcohol increases the odds of you dying sooner or having other negative health effects sooner (which will lead to you dying sooner). There is no amount that won’t increase those odds. It says nothing about how much any given drink would impact your life span. I’m not saying it’s negligible or significant, but I can’t be bothered to look it up.
We know the mechanisms by which alcohol causes negative health effects, to basically all the systems in the body.
It’s not a particularly strong effect for the occasional drinker, but the degree of confidence we have in the correlation is very strong, and we have an underlying model of the biological mechanisms that cause poor health outcomes.
Well, the WHO puts it in the same category as tobacco. Is tobacco just strongly correlated to cancer? And I don’t need to say it is causative, because The Lancet did.
You can stack that data up against your anecdotes however you like.
I wonder if this is something that changed over time. As in preservatives and all sorts of chemicals being added to tobacco or alcohol. For example, I can smoke Japanese cigarettes without a problem. I’ve smoked Vietnam era MRE cigarettes, Old Ukrainian unfiltered cigarettes. But I can’t smoke US made ones since around 2007, they make me sick and taste like ash.
Did you read that paper? I don’t believe it supports your argument.
The mechanism by which smoking causes e.g. lung cancer and the significant rate at which it does so is well understood. I’m not convinced the same can currently be said of alcohol.
OP is referring to the j-curve historically seen in studies about drinking. Because researchers didn’t control for people who stopped drinking after years of abuse or people who couldn’t drink because of other health issues, it looked like having 0 drinks per day led to worse health outcomes than 1-2 drinks per day. Because of that, many health organizations spent decades telling people that 1-2 drinks per day was better for you than 0 drinks per day.
Someone finally controlled for those variables a few years ago, and the j-curve vanished. Most health organizations now say they’re is no amount of alcohol that is safe to consume.
So it’s got nothing to do with Gen Z drinking habit specifically, and the science has been corrected since. But a lot of people still internalized and parrot the “1-2 drinks is healthy” thing.
i get what you’re saying, but what i’m wondering is, while alcohol is bad for your liver and damages your health in that way, it also leads to social occasions and less loneliness, i guess. so you might have psychological improvements; and was that also tested for?
Alcohol on its own does not cause social occasions or reduce loneliness. Plenty of people drink alone, and plenty of people gather socially without drinking.
That said, while the advice from a health standpoint is that no amount of alcohol is completely safe to drink, humans do risky shit all the time for fun or convenience. More people get hurt in car accidents than develop alcohol-related diseases, but no one is stopping driving. The difference in outcomes between people who have zero drinks per day versus 1-2 drinks per day is much less than the difference between 1-2 and 5+ drinks. So occasional/light drinking is still relatively low-risk. It’s just not actively good for you as previously thought.
No amount of alcohol is safe? Is that like saying no amount of driving is safe?
Sure. Any driving you do increases your risk of death. But it’s likely you need to drive for other reasons that reduce your risk of death (like buying food).
Drinking is different because no one needs to drink.
Haha, ymmv but I find driving to be unnecessary
Yes but this depends significantly on where you live.
For sure, I’m very lucky to live where I do.
Yep.
alcohol is driving?
Exactly!
I meant that plenty of people drink reasonable amounts alcohol all the time with no apparent issues.
It means that any amount of alcohol increases the odds of you dying sooner or having other negative health effects sooner (which will lead to you dying sooner). There is no amount that won’t increase those odds. It says nothing about how much any given drink would impact your life span. I’m not saying it’s negligible or significant, but I can’t be bothered to look it up.
Come on, you have to say it’s positively correlated rather than causative that’s the whole point of the thread.
This isn’t a hill I want to die on, but I don’t think it’s a meaningful claim without a bit more nuance.
No, it’s causal.
We know the mechanisms by which alcohol causes negative health effects, to basically all the systems in the body.
It’s not a particularly strong effect for the occasional drinker, but the degree of confidence we have in the correlation is very strong, and we have an underlying model of the biological mechanisms that cause poor health outcomes.
Well, the WHO puts it in the same category as tobacco. Is tobacco just strongly correlated to cancer? And I don’t need to say it is causative, because The Lancet did.
You can stack that data up against your anecdotes however you like.
I wonder if this is something that changed over time. As in preservatives and all sorts of chemicals being added to tobacco or alcohol. For example, I can smoke Japanese cigarettes without a problem. I’ve smoked Vietnam era MRE cigarettes, Old Ukrainian unfiltered cigarettes. But I can’t smoke US made ones since around 2007, they make me sick and taste like ash.
Did you read that paper? I don’t believe it supports your argument.
The mechanism by which smoking causes e.g. lung cancer and the significant rate at which it does so is well understood. I’m not convinced the same can currently be said of alcohol.