No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health

https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health

by indus • 3 years ago

209 337 3 years ago

coldtea2• 3 years ago

There's also a limit between a healthy lifestyle and enjoyment of life, beyond which towards "maximum health" you'll either go to an early grave because of how bland your life is, or live a joyless life avoiding things you'd enjoy.

In any case, those kind of "research" is for modern americans (and people taking their cues from anglosaxon culture) , who are already conditioned in such hysteria - which is funny in the country eating some of the worst quality food in the Western world, cooked the worst ways, in the worst portions, and with the worst mass production integredients. Or perhaps an overcorrection.

The average Italian, for example, should, and definitely, would just laught this off.

B8MGHCBekDuRi15• 3 years ago

The average Italian, for example, should, and definitely, would just laught this off.

we don't even drink that much, compared to other countries.

we simply enjoy it, even if it doesn't make our life longer, like many other activities that are not even enjoyable.

https://ourworldindata.org/alcohol-consumption

freehorse• 3 years ago

Plus, drinking together with food instead of on an empty stomach (as more common in more northern cultures) slows down absorption allowing more time for the liver to process the alcohol before it reaches the brain and other organs, if we are talking about a standard dosage (a glass of wine etc). Even if this is not enough for the liver (even with a glass of wine and full stomach it will not be able to process alcohol without getting overloaded), it is definitely better than binging beers on empty stomach, as less alcohol will be in circulation and reaching organs for less amount of time. But then, how often one does that matters too.

chasd00• 3 years ago

Time consumption is 100% fatal

layer82• 3 years ago

The rate is a constant one second per second though, whereas with alcohol it's variable.

fredley• 3 years ago

This is not news, it has been known for some time. For anyone wanting to get an in-depth, balanced, and rigorous take on alcohol I can heartily recommend Drink? by David Nutt. Reading it has made me more mindful of when and why I choose to drink, and increasingly I find myself drinking less and less.

FollowingTheDao4• 3 years ago

But that book does not suggest alcohol at any level is bad either. So if they are saying is news. And stupid ill-informed news.

phonescreen_man2• 3 years ago

Was David Nutt the UK scientific advisor who came out and said weed, lsd, ecstasy are all far less harmful than tobacco and alcohol and was then publicly shamed and abused by the uk Media for daring to suggest such a thing?

jowsie• 3 years ago

He compared taking ecstasy to riding a horse in terms of danger. It's one of many things that led to him being sacked.

CretinDesAlpes• 3 years ago

Yes, he is known for this graph (The Lancet, 2010): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt#/media/File:HarmCau...

makeitdouble3• 3 years ago

David Nutt

To get a taste of the person before reading the book:

https://youtu.be/bASaIJMxMqI

zabzonk14• 3 years ago

already had this, a couple of hours ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34751649

tester756• 3 years ago

Cool, maybe it'll help debunking those "small amounts of alcohol are healthly (from body standpoint)"

B8MGHCBekDuRi15• 3 years ago

no need to debunk the truth.

It's like drugs.

Take too many pills, you die.

Take them when you need them and their benefit will surpass the risks.

Alcohol works the same way.

We know for a fact that moderate drinkers live longer than non-drinkers and heavy drinkers.

We still don't know why.

edit: most people don't want to hear the truth.

Moderate drinker live longer than non-drinkers.

It's a well known fact

For example, one study following more than 333,000 adults for about eight years found light-to-moderate drinkers were more than 20 percent less likely to die prematurely from all causes and from cardiovascular disease in particular than people who never drank at all.

When they tried to "debunk" it the only explanation they could find is that non-drinkers die prematurely because of the risks they took earlier in life.

Confirming that moderation is key, abstinence due to guilt for past behaviour and a sudden fear of death, won't solve anything.

I'm sorry if the alcoholics that took the 12 steps here are triggered by the truth, but your problems are not everyone's problems.

We have been drinking alcohol for longer than we were able to write, we still do it, because it's a social rite, it keeps people together, like a good meal, you can't simply delete it because you used to drink scotch straight from the bottle since the moment you woke up and the only solution you've found is getting a different addiction: staying clean at all costs.

diydsp• 3 years ago

"because moderate drinkers tend to be very socially advantaged," Naimi says. Moderate drinkers tend to be healthier on average because they're well-educated and more affluent, not because they're drinking a bottle of wine a week on average. "[Their] alcohol consumption ends up looking good from a health perspective because they're already healthy to begin with."

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/22/4714163...

polarbeans100• 3 years ago

Id be interested in a source as it is my understanding that most of this research was disinformation from the alcohol industry. The small uptick in death rates at 0 alcohol consumption is due to the prevalence of people with severe illness not drinking. The illness causes both the non drinking and the increased risk of death. When this is corrected for, people who drink 0 alcohol live longest.

tavorep• 3 years ago

"We still don't know why."

That's the point though. Even if this fact is true it doesn't mean that drinking is healthy for these moderate drinkers. There could be other reasons that they're living longer and that drinking is actually working against them, not for them.

pard68• 3 years ago

I enjoy a cigar or pipe once in a while. I enjoy a few fingers of bourbon now and then. I've been known to put back a few bottles of Coors on the weekend.

Not once have I thought, "yup this'll make me healthier [physically]."

B8MGHCBekDuRi15• 3 years ago

You nailed it.

Nobody does everything they do because they think "this is good for my health".

We usually avoid stuff that is very bad for our health, but life is not just about going on for years avoiding any risk at all cost.

Unless you are American, you pretend to like the monk life and then eat garbage directly from the garbage can

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/26/opinion/food-nutrition-he...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/opinion/sway-kara-swisher...

tmountain• 3 years ago

“life is not just about going on for years avoiding any risk at all cost.”

Very well said. Every choice we make has pros and cons. If someone wants to optimize for maximum longevity and avoid all risk factors, that’s a personal decision.

If you don’t want to follow that path, that’s fine too.

The equation is different for everyone. I have completely avoided alcohol for extended periods, and frankly, I just missed having a beer with a friend, so I decided to adjust my behavior.

Does that make me a bad person that’s going to die early?

If everything is a risk equation, we should be talking about our career choices (sitting at a desk), the risk of driving to the grocery store, living in cities is dangerous (pollution), etc.

I think it’s great for people to be informed, but the morality police squad is nauseating.

FollowingTheDao4• 3 years ago

To say this is true for every human being is an assault on the field of genetics.

There are several voltage gated ion channels that are inhibited by ethanol. So ethanol can clearly be seen as a medicine in those with genetic changes in these genes that cause channel channelopathies.

And anecdotally, my grandfather drank a lot. Not an alcoholic, but he was no teetotaler, and I would often see him sneaking shots of vodka before noon. He lived was 99 with his full mental capacity.

thehappypm• 3 years ago

Sneaking shots is alcoholic behavior.

dsfyu404ed• 3 years ago

Or it's "keep the peace" behavior. A real alcoholic would have it in a water bottle.

(inb4 no true scotsman)

throwaway98797• 3 years ago

what’s preferred a happy alcoholic or a sober know it all

FollowingTheDao4• 3 years ago

Give me a break. Do you know my grandfather? When I said sneaking shot, it wasn’t that he was hiding it from anyone. Don’t misinterpret what I say.

How do you feel if he wasn’t alcoholic so what? That’s not relevant here the relevance is how it affected his health. He was healthy till he was 99. As well as his marriage and family life. He was a barber till was 82.

Tired of you people turning everything into a pathology.

CommanderData3• 3 years ago

Do you think he would have lived longer without Alcohol?

blantonl• 3 years ago

Your grandfather was an alcoholic who lived to age 99

joemazerino• 3 years ago

I despise the WHO generally but this article is solid. There is too much confusion about alcohol in the medical industry. If you ask European doctors having a glass or two of wine "extends health". If you research typical government guidelines, they say a drink or two a day isn't bad or may even say it's "healthy" [1]

The facts are facts. Alcohol is a poison that wrecks havoc on your mind and body. If having one drink can decompress you after a hard days work, fine, you're not gonna get cancer. Let's just stop pretending alcohol is a solid healthy choice.

1 - https://www.boston.com/news/health/2020/07/15/men-should-lim...

bamboozled8• 3 years ago

Anecdotally I know a lot of really old people who still drink. Maybe I'd know more if they didn't drink.

I know one guy who is ~90, survived cancer 3 times and attributes his survival to daily doses of Japanese Shochu.

You might be able to argue that alcohol was the cause of the cancer but I guess we'll never know.

Disclaimer: Currently not drinking even a drop.

Edit: Maybe I'd know more if they didn't drink....is a reference to the fact I read the article and I understand that statistically, there might be more old people alive because it seems like it's "statistically safer" not to drink so please, try to stay calm and stop telling me I can't understand anything about statistics...I know it's exciting to do this lately though.

konschubert• 3 years ago

This comment adds nothing to the discussion.

SeanLuke• 3 years ago

Anecdotally I know a lot of really old people who still drink.

I know someone who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day who is almost 100 years old. Smoking is good or you!

rco87864• 3 years ago

For every of those is several people who died at 60 from liver disease

andsoitis2• 3 years ago

don’t let anecdata bamboozle you

kevinmchugh3• 3 years ago

The thing they have in common is that they still have social connections, including with you. People who are alone for stretches of time have a lot more risk from falls, etc

ozim• 3 years ago

It gets worse where people get issues and they start looking for some diet supplements or pills for "better liver" ,"concentration problems" or whatever else.

When first thing they should do is stop drinking alcohol.

In the reddit thread about article there was someone who could not connect the dots that after drinking alcohol they would have hangover the next day.

cinntaile• 3 years ago

In the reddit thread about article there was someone who could not connect the dots that after drinking alcohol they would have hangover the next day.

To me it sounds like you have been trolled.

bryanlarsen• 3 years ago

The dose makes the poison

- Paracelsus

rileymat23• 3 years ago

“We cannot talk about a so-called safe level of alcohol use. It doesn’t matter how much you drink – the risk to the drinker’s health starts from the first drop of any alcoholic beverage. The only thing that we can say for sure is that the more you drink, the more harmful it is – or, in other words, the less you drink, the safer it is,” explains Dr Carina Ferreira-Borges, acting Unit Lead for Noncommunicable Disease Management and Regional Advisor for Alcohol and Illicit Drugs in the WHO Regional Office for Europe.

I think that it is explicitly pushing back on that very concept.

api• 3 years ago

That’s not really universally true. There are plenty of things where any amount does harm.

FredPret• 3 years ago

Sometimes the correct dose is zero

andsoitis2• 3 years ago

and that quote stems from his philosophy:

Paracelsus believed that true anatomy could only be understood once the nourishment for each part of the body was discovered. He believed that one must therefore know the influence of the stars on these particular body parts.[59] Diseases were caused by poisons brought from the stars. However, 'poisons' were not necessarily something negative, in part because related substances interacted, but also because only the dose determined if a substance was poisonous or not.

— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus

SilasX2• 3 years ago

If having one drink can decompress you after a hard days work, fine, you're not gonna get cancer.

That would seem to contradict the headline, and content, that there's a safe level of alcohol consumption.

In fact, the WHO really takes that claim seriously -- the headline is not a simplification:

>when it comes to alcohol consumption, there is no safe amount that does not affect health ... Alcohol causes at least seven types of cancer ... "We cannot talk about a so-called safe level of alcohol use. It doesn’t matter how much you drink – the risk to the drinker’s health starts from the first drop of any alcoholic beverage."

But yeah, I agree, in that I'm sure you can find a low enough level of alcohol consumption that can't be discerned in health outcomes. Like, 1 microliter, one time.

It sounds like your comment is more about rejecting claims that there can be a health benefit to alcohol, but the WHO is going much further than that.

sophacles• 3 years ago

"not gonna get cancer" is in no way contradicting the headline. There's plenty of non-cancerous dangers in the world.

lettergram2• 3 years ago

I think the challenge is really that even spices like pepper cause inflammation.

You can always find a downside to anything you ingest.

I think you’re correct, the best approach is to explain “safe limits”.

Personally, I think it’s fine if people smoke, drink, etc until their heart is content. That said; it’s also why I’m opposed to socialized medicine. Almost everyone I know on social medicine didn’t take care of themselves (only a maybe one couldnt take care of themselves).

The challenge with socialized medicine is that we should now push to ban alcohol, logically.

MauranKilom• 3 years ago

The challenge with socialized medicine is that we should now push to ban alcohol, logically.

That has not worked in the past. Do you think it would work any better nowadays?

RhodesianHunter• 3 years ago

There is no logical banning of alcohol, we've learned that lesson.

ftrobro• 3 years ago

I had to google the meaning of "socialized medicine" (no I don't live in the US). My first thought was that maybe it meant "getting better thanks to emotional support from other people", but Wikipedia had this to say about "socialized medicine":

> More recently, American conservative critics of health care reform have attempted to broaden the term by applying it to any publicly funded system.

Fascinating how different political groups literally do not speak the same language. I now assume you mean that all people should pay 100 % for their own health care needs since people only have themselves to blame if they need health care?

roenxi• 3 years ago

I dunno, is it a solid article? They say "Risks start from the first drop" and I am having a a hard time imagining how they could prove that, regardless of how likely it is. Looks like fearmongering.

I'm sympathetic to the idea that everyone should stop drinking. I'm not a fan of mind-altering drugs and it makes for boring conversation. But we need to get used to the idea that literally nothing is safe. Living kills us all eventually. The argument against alcohol needs to be that an alcohol-free life is of higher quality.

If we're going to discourage people from doing unsafe things, are we planning to disband the army? There is no safe amount of time to spend in a moving vehicle either, those things are dangerous. Working a day job is no good for people's health. Safe doesn't mean no harm; that is impossible. And the question is always whether the benefit outweighs the cost.

giantg25• 3 years ago

"Risks start from the first drop"

If this is true, the medical community is actively causing harm. Many compounded or suspended children's medicines contain alcohol. Many do not have alcohol free alternatives.

merb• 3 years ago

If you ask European doctors having a glass or two of wine "extends health".

but it's not because of the alcohol, why wine is "good", it because we mostly relax with it, which reduces stress levels. everything else is bad, at least that it the perception of the last 2-4 years in germany.

quantified4• 3 years ago

Guess we better give up alcohol swabs, can't be rubbing known carcinogens on our bodies. Cause isopropyl is poisonous too.

B8MGHCBekDuRi15• 3 years ago

this article is doing an even worse job though: there are a lot of people i the comments that are convinced that if they do not drink at all, they will live longer.

They won't.

The facts are facts. Alcohol is a poison that wrecks havoc on your mind and body

So are almonds

If you eat 20 apples including the seeds, you die instantly.

But so are also soda beverages

but US citizens drink an estimated 154 liters per capita every year

Nihilartikel• 3 years ago

On the subject of decompressing from daily stress.. I would humbly submit that a small (just above psychoactive threshold) puff of vaporized (not combusted) THC extract or other legal cannabinoid, is a good harm reduction measure, compared to alcohol. Especially if it eliminates the urge to drink or seek other more risky hedonic outlets.

bradleyjg3• 3 years ago

The generational zeitgeist is ostentatious abnegation. This fits.

HEmanZ• 3 years ago

I don’t think you’re right, every generation since modernity seems equal in this regard, the latest generations don’t seem special.

But, I like this phrase “the generational zeitgeist is ostentatious abnegation”, so much that I’m going to use it in the future and pretend I do believe it. Thank you

bradleyjg3• 3 years ago

The 80s was famously about conspicuous consumption. Not everyone then, and there plenty of it now, but the zeitgeist isn’t a statistical metric.

__derek__3• 3 years ago

Definitely an interesting turn of phrase. Ironically, I think you've helped me understand why I might be wrong about some of the metaverse hype: while I steadfastly believe that people prefer the real world, moving consumption to a fake world (e.g., buying an NFT handbag for your digital avatar) would fall into this category of behavior. In effect, paying as much to own a fake good as the real thing is loudly saying, "Look at what I could have purchased if I were less virtuous."

paiute4• 3 years ago

The thinking is backwards on this. They state there is no scientific safe drinking level. They even compare it to radiation. The goal is to establish an unsafe level. it's like saying there is no safe speed to drive a car - sure that's technically true, but worthless to say.

FollowingTheDao4• 3 years ago

And they make zero comment about genetic risk. That’s what matters, genetic risk, as well as the total amount of exposure to carcinogenic’s. It’s just a worthless dumb thing to say.

npalli• 3 years ago

There has been some suggestions that 1-2 drinks is the optimal (extends health etc..). So, this clears up any confusion on that topic. There are many things that are risky but make life worth living, the previous guidance made it appear you could enjoy life (1-2 drinks) with actual upsides which unfortunately turns out not to be the case of drinking.

lr4444lr3• 3 years ago

Driving isn't hazardous to your health. Crashing is. That's like saying eating is unhealthy to your health because you might choke.

kitten_mittens_• 3 years ago

Driving is hazardous to other people's health in the form of crashes AND pollution in the form of noise, dust, and exhaust.

jannyfer• 3 years ago

That’s like saying smoking is not hazardous to your health, getting cancer is.

Jumping off a building is not hazardous to your health, hitting the ground is.

Ekaros2• 3 years ago

I think overall it is likely slight net negative. Just from things like particulate pollution and siting not moving for a period. Also the UV light from sun possibly.

Not that there isn't acceptable tradeoffs with what is attained by driving.

nordsieck2• 3 years ago

They state there is no scientific safe drinking level. They even compare it to radiation. The goal is to establish an unsafe level. it's like saying there is no safe speed to drive a car - sure that's technically true, but worthless to say.

Which is ironic, because, while most people use the "Linear no-threshold" model for radiation, we know that small amounts of radiation are actually beneficial.

The most charitable reason I can think of for why people still use the LNT model is because it's simple and robust. But that doesn't mean that it's the most accurate understanding that we have.

PartiallyTyped• 3 years ago

Which is ironic, because, while most people use the "Linear no-threshold" model for radiation, we know that small amounts of radiation are actually beneficial.

How could ionizing radiation be beneficial? Unless the argument is exposure to ultraviolet in order to get Vitamin D, I can’t imagine ionizing radiation to be beneficial in any way.

Edit:

The good includes abundant evidence showing increased 1) physiologic performance, 2) immune competence, 3) health, and 4) mean lifespan.

From the article in the comment below. Apparently in very low doses it stimulates the immune system and healthy cell reconstruction.

davidhbolton• 3 years ago

From the BMJ *British Medical Journal). "Analyses of the dose of alcohol consumed showed that 2.5–14.9 g alcohol (about ≤1 drink) per day was protective for all five outcomes compared with no alcohol (table 2⇑). For coronary heart disease outcomes, all levels of intake >2.5 g/day had similar degrees of risk reduction. " https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d671

Heart Disease is a bigger killer than cancer.

inciampati• 3 years ago

Meanwhile, there isn't clear evidence that there is no safe level of radiation. Biological systems are buffered in all kinds of ways, including against low doses of radiation, mutagens, and even... acids ! (Contrary to modern health biz ideas "oh your body is so acidic, drink this basic water to fix it!")

arsome• 3 years ago

The goal here is to dispel the "extends health" and similar claims often made about light or moderate drinking.

If you take a look at the studies you can determine how much of an increased risk you're comfortable with. For example, figure 5 in https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

When doing this analysis though be sure to note that scientists studying this use 10g drinks, which is 12.5mL of ethanol, one tallboy of 6.5% beer is therefore about 2.5 drinks.

paiute4• 3 years ago

I might be wrong here, but I have never heard the claim that 2 beers might be good for your health. I have heard that with wine, but that's not a claim that alcohol is good for your health.

keymon-o4• 3 years ago

Driving may be a necessity while drinking is rarely an obligation. Also driving may cause instant harm while, drinking may cause a very much delayed harm. So, by knowing that not driving or not drinking are the safest choice I can choose to skip having a single drink and avoid driving if I don’t have to, thus completely minimizing the risk.

It’s not worthless at all.

ericmay2• 3 years ago

Sure but you can basically play this game forever and arrive at a very bad, but safe quality of life.

Funny enough though driving is by far worse for your health than moderate or light drinking, and it’s even more insidious than drinking because not only do that negative effects take a long time to manifest, but they’re couched inside of a “necessity”.

ThreeBeanPizza• 3 years ago

I do not agree with your analogy or theirs. First most people have to drive at some point in their lives. Driving is not a choice we get to make so the associated risks are not something we can deal with. While it is debatable if you can avoid drinking socially many people do for a variety of reasons. The article is fairly clear. Drinking alcohol will increase cancer risks. And like someone eloquently said above you the real critique is not it is stupid to point out drinking is an avoidable carcinogen but it is our free choice as people to make that trade off knowing you might enjoy it. I think the point about radiation is a better comparison but again like driving it is unavoidable to a degree. We will all go outside more in our lives then is recommended. Once again drinking is not unavoidable. I don't think the article makes a worthless argument and I believe your analogies are false comparisons but I still take your point. I agree drinking is not something people want to avoid so it is certainly up to each person to choose their own acceptable risk but honestly that is more a personal choice that science can advise then a magic number we can all follow.

Edit, I can't read

RandomLensman3• 3 years ago

You have to avoid way more than just alcoholic beverages etc. to avoid alcohol completely. Definitely fruits and fruit juice will be problematic.

P_I_Staker7• 3 years ago

They don't give a safe number of cigarettes, do they? There probably is a number that's minimally harmful, that lowers with age.

Alcohol has numerically similar numbers of cancer cases, and cancer is just one aspect. Now it is less, and we can argue about how widespread the use is ect. However, it cases 1/3 of the cases, heart disease, mental health problems.

Are you a drinker? Especially since quitting, I've noticed a lot of drinkers get incredibly defensive against something that seems very rational and well supported by evidence.

skeeter20207• 3 years ago

as a continued social drinker, or more general doer of anything, i've noticed that anyone who no longer does that thing is typically quite vocal and negative towards said thing.

Set aside alcohol for a minute; this article is saying that because the absolute risk of an activity is not zero, the activity is inheriently unsafe. That's not true, not an appropriate strategy for decision making, and most importantly not an effective way to influence behaviours. This is the definition of perfect as the enemy of better.

paiute4• 3 years ago

I drink maybe 4 drinks total a month. I get where you're going with that though. There is actually data out there on smoking, and having a cigar once in a while isn't really more unsafe than sitting by the camp fire. Your body also recovers itself in most regards rather quickly after chronic smoking (months). I'm not a smoker, and it's better not to smoke because it's super addictive, but having a smoke is like having a drink, not unsafe per say. I'm more worried about sugar than alcohol.

bigyikes• 3 years ago

The only thing that we can say for sure is that the more you drink, the more harmful it is – or, in other words, the less you drink, the safer it is.

I wish the article would tell us more about this curve. How much does my risk increase for each drink I have?

CommanderData3• 3 years ago

There's a huge industry and lobby at odds. I drink less and less but I can't ignore its always in my face.

YouTubers big and small with a massive child demographic were promoting alcohol or their own brands not long ago.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pN6ksB3-QJ8

[2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gfjgISRI5E4

[3] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qF0zM5MlmCw

rayiner7• 3 years ago

And that doesn't include the externalized costs, such as increased domestic violence: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-50887893, impacts on children: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/18/even-moderat..., etc. Now that Americans are more docile it might be a good time to take another shot at alcohol prohibition: https://time.com/5501680/prohibition-history-feminism-suffra....

auveair3• 3 years ago

And that doesn't include the externalized costs, such as increased domestic violence, impacts on children

I have never seen someone who did those things drunk who didn't also do those things sober.

rayiner7• 3 years ago

From the BBC article: "Men who are dependent on alcohol or drugs are six or seven times more likely to be involved in domestic abuse against women than others, according to an extensive new study."

That makes sense--alcohol decreases inhibition. It makes you do things that maybe you were inclined to do, but wouldn't do sober. (That is part of why people drink alcohol in the first place.)

B8MGHCBekDuRi15• 3 years ago

yeah, prohibition totally worked.

Why not call McCarthy back too?

Alcohol problems are not the same thing of alcohol consumption.

Also:

Scotland's alcohol consumption is among the highest in the world, according to World Health Organization data; on average, Scots consume the equivalent of more than 13 liters (3.4 gallons) of pure alcohol a year, about 40 percent more than Americans (2.4 gallons)

We in Italy consume less than 7 liters per year (less than 1.8 gallons).

Talking about moderate drinking.

rayiner7• 3 years ago

yeah, prohibition totally worked.

Americans are much more compliant now, not to mention health and socially conscious. For example, the culture of alcohol use has disparate impacts on black and brown communities: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2771773/ ("African Americans and Hispanics bear a disproportionately greater burden of alcohol-related health problems compared to whites, as evidenced by higher rates of liver cirrhosis, death rates due to cirrhosis, and rates of overall alcohol-related mortality.") That is true even though, for example, black Americans begin drinking later and drink less than white Americans: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3758406/.

marcus0x623• 3 years ago

Why would that be a good idea? If you don’t want to drink, then don’t. Kindly leave me alone.

rayiner7• 3 years ago

That would be fine if drinking didn't affect people's ability to satisfy their social obligations (as coworkers, parents, friends, etc.) but that's not the case.

sh4rks• 3 years ago

However, latest available data indicate that half of all alcohol-attributable cancers in the WHO European Region are caused by “light” and “moderate” alcohol consumption – less than 1.5 litres of wine or less than 3.5 litres of beer or less than 450 millilitres of spirits per week

Half a litre of beer a day is considered "light"?

zabzonk14• 3 years ago

it is where i come from - uk.

also they don't say how many of those cancers can actually be attributed directly to alcohol consumption. my guess would be few.

arlort• 3 years ago

https://www.thelancet.com/article/S1470-2045(21)00279-5/full...

Globally, an estimated 741 300 (95% UI 558 500–951 200), or 4·1% (3·1–5·3), of all new cases of cancer in 2020 were attributable to alcohol consumption

subpixel• 3 years ago

That’s one bottle of beer. I’d call that light.

rco87864• 3 years ago

That’s basically 1 pint a day, or 16 oz as the ceiling for “light”. That seems reasonable? Not the amount necessarily just the classification.

marcosdumay• 3 years ago

If you drink the average every day, you will spend a large part of your days inebriated. And if you don't drink the average every day, you will be deeply drunk every few days.

It's completely unreasonable to call that level of consumption "light".

BobbyJo2• 3 years ago

Beer in the EU is often ~4% alcohol. Half a liter is barely more than a can of Coors light in terms of alcohol volume.

ginko• 3 years ago

Beer in the EU is often ~4% alcohol.

Where would that be? German beer is usually 5-5.5%, same for Austria. In Norway it's 4.5-4.7%

deafpolygon2• 3 years ago

A bottle is 0.33 (or 330ml)

proto_lambda2• 3 years ago

Where is that? 330ml bottles definitely exist, but 0.5l is the default in Austria.

proto_lambda2• 3 years ago

From that quote, I'd say it's the upper limit of what's considered "moderate".

xxs• 3 years ago

Half a litre of beer a day is considered "light"?

It's very light - in many (most not zero-tolerance) country is legal to drive. One beer is around 0.04-0.05% for a grown up man, around 2h after consumption it should be below 0.02%.

thriftwy2• 3 years ago

Human liver has enzymes to metabolize alcohol for energy, which implicitly makes this claim questionable. If we have it, why not be putting it to work?

Armisael16• 3 years ago

The human body also has ways to heal broken bones - are you arguing that it’s a waste to not use those as well?

We’ve developed means to more effectively handle certain common poisons. That doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous.

thriftwy2• 3 years ago

Bones need load to grow properly, and they will use the same mechanisms to grow strong.

Poisons are neutralized but are not energy source (nutrient). Turns out, alcohol is.

Ekaros2• 3 years ago

Body also can naturally remove the commonly occurring heavy metals. But that doesn't mean we should consume them just because such mechanisms exist.

amelius• 3 years ago

Not even a homeopathic quantity?

z3t4• 3 years ago

I wonder how the data is treated statistically. If 99% of millionaires have consumed alcohol, does consuming alcohol increase the chance of becoming a millionaire!?

layer82• 3 years ago

The question is, how much alcohol did they consume before becoming a millionaire, compared to the rest of the population. It might actually be less.

bjourne4• 3 years ago

Do you think researchers are idiots?

drukenemo• 3 years ago

Being a researcher is not an immediate admission to being honest, integral and intelligent.

friend_and_foe3• 3 years ago

A significant proportion of them are, unless you assume that proportion is just blatantly dishonest.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

bikamonki• 3 years ago

We've been drinking fermented drinks for millenia and yet here we are: 8 billion strong. Shut up WHO ;)

hobo_mark• 3 years ago

Nobody claimed alcohol stops procreation, hell if anything it does the opposite.

zabzonk14• 3 years ago

"depends how much alcohol", he said, somewhat floppily.

gus_massa2• 3 years ago

Actually, only some populations developed the gene mutation to increase the alcohol people can tolerate, but I can't find the number now. Try navigating from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_tolerance to see if you are more lucky.

hungryforcodes2• 3 years ago

This reads like a press release without any substantial discussion or references. COVID has died down...is WHO looking for the next thing to keep itself on the radar?

VLM6• 3 years ago

Cool now do this with refined sugars or high carb diets in general.

It'll be the same discussion, addicts trying to rationalize away the science and statistics.

barbazoo10• 3 years ago

It'll be the same discussion, addicts trying to rationalize away the science and statistics.

Pretty shocking to see this much denialism going on in a forum that's often much more rational and objective.

VLM6• 3 years ago

Compartmentalization. Plenty of stimulant and H and other drug abusers in tech.

Sugar and alcohol are addictive and addictions are irrational and you can't use rational objective thought to get out of a situation that is inherently irrational and subjective, like addiction.

Essentially zero H users, for example, have never heard the news that H is bad for them. Can't just concentrate hard enough to get out of an addiction, they don't work that way. So it is with alcohol, sugar, carb binging in general, etc.

P_I_Staker7• 3 years ago

Carbs are great for you if you get the right carbs.

VLM6• 3 years ago

Cite needed LOL. They're great for weight gain, which is not much of a medical necessity in the current year although there are special situations (cancer patients, etc)

If you don't eat an essential nutrient (vitamins, minerals, etc) you'll eventually get sick and die. If you don't eat a very high carb diet you'll ... be healthier and have better blood test results? Nobody never died from having a single digit A1c blood test result or a blood glucose no longer going up to 250 anymore LOL.

CommanderData3• 3 years ago

Beverages which taste exactly the same but has no harmful alcohol or toxic side effects, would people still want the toxic version?

zabzonk14• 3 years ago

i've drunk a fair amount of zero-alcohol beer, and the answer to your question is "yes", for reasons of flavour (alcohol changes this) and effect ("beer. it makes you drunk" - advertising slogan thought up by kingsley amis, i believe)

fernandotakai• 3 years ago

at least for me, depends. i don't like the way alcohol-free beer tastes -- it's just not the same.

sometimes i drink a nice whiskey because i love the taste (specially when paired with a nice cigar), but sometimes i drink to get tipsy because... well, it's fun for me.

it's like the difference between normal cake and cake infused with thc: i will eat cake for dessert, but sometimes, ingesting infused cake is more fun.

theNJR• 3 years ago

There are plenty of such 0% and drinks and they aren’t nearly as popular. People are after the effects, the taste is secondary.

astura• 3 years ago

Non-alcoholic beer exists, is sold at bars, and is niche-popular. Obviously, most people go for the alcohol version.

It doesn't taste exactly the same though - but similar.

lvl102• 3 years ago

If life wasn’t so miserable alcohol wouldn’t be so popular.

phonescreen_man2• 3 years ago

Haha yeah nailed it. Plenty of good reasons to drink.

tinus_hn• 3 years ago

And people wonder why young people get lost in hard drugs when all science has to bring to the table is this kind of puritanical view.

quantified4• 3 years ago

No frequency of driving to the store is safe, or jumping in the pool.

Don't drink much. Beyond that, so what?

thebigspacefuck7• 3 years ago

Alcohol is a hard drug.

rubyist5eva• 3 years ago

As I’m getting older I’ve basically had to swear off alchohol and marijuana completely. Even if I don’t get intoxicated (or stoned), I nearly always just feel like absolute garbage the next day (not hangover, just feel gross and groggy). Sometimes it’s lasted for days, even when I only have one drink or smoke barely enough weed to get a little buzzed. Fortunately I’ve also reached a point where I just don’t really feel good from being intoxicated either so I don’t really have a recreational incentive to do it anymore either.

I don’t know how these things affect other people’s “sober lives” but if it’s anything like that I don’t see how people can function when getting intoxicated semi-regularly. The cost-benefit just seems completely lobsided.

misiti37804• 3 years ago

it's pretty simple, drink a lots of water while consuming and avoid high S02 + ABV based beverages.

jwmoz• 3 years ago

As someone currently suffering from a migraine after only drinking 2 cans of beer last night, I can attest to this.

aliqot• 3 years ago

you need to take better care of your body

kimjune01• 3 years ago

bread has alcohol in it. is it unsafe to eat bread?

barbazoo10• 3 years ago

Residual if any at all. For now it remains safe to eat bread, yes.

tpmx• 3 years ago

Now do cannabis, WHO.

deepsquirrelnet2• 3 years ago

https://www.who.int/teams/mental-health-and-substance-use/al...

https://www.who.int/teams/health-product-and-policy-standard...

https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/can...

https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/ecdd-41-cannabis-rec...

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/251056/9789...

barbazoo10• 3 years ago

So much denialism going on here, it's like talking to my alcoholic relative. This shouldn't trigger such a strong reaction, if it does, one should look into why that is.

danrl• 3 years ago

I scrolled almost through the entire conversation. This is the first sane comment. Thank you.

RhysabOweyn2• 3 years ago

Maybe read the well documented history of self-righteous teetotalers? It's not too hard to understand what the goal of this type of rhetoric is.

Lienetic• 3 years ago

I'm genuinely curious - do you have some good references of this history I could read?

zabzonk14• 3 years ago

being told what you should be doing by the self-righteous will tend to produce this effect

barbazoo10• 3 years ago

All the article proposes are warnings on labels like they exist for tobacco. No telling you what to do at all.

earth_walker• 3 years ago

The reaction you're seeing is not because we've all got drinking problems. It's due to the reactionary way this and other similar studies are headlined: "No level of alcohol consumption is safe...". It's click-bait, and so you're seeing the resulting clicks.

I'm sure you wouldn't have seen anywhere near this kind of reaction if the headline was instead "Any level of alcohol consumption increases liver cancer risk by X in 10,000" or "Adjustments to confounding factors show that non-drinkers have a 0.0000X% longer life expectancy".

Beyond the headline designed to invoke a reaction, I think there's a good basis for general fear of this kind of judgment - it invokes the language around many other prohibitions of all that is good and fun in the name of our physical or moral health.

We are only just working through lifting prohibitions on Cannabis here in the west, albeit with many strings attached. Many countries (and a good number of North American counties) still have prohibitions on alcohol. We as a society prohibit many kinds of mushroom, plant roots, leaves and oils.

Here in Canada the health authority has a "no safe levels" attitude towards absinthe, house-made mayo, rare burgers and many of the world's greatest cheeses. We've put "for external use only" warning labels on cooking ingredients like mustard oil and tamarind extracts. We've banned cooking wines entirely!

So yes. When I see "no safe levels of alcohol" I do tend to over-react. Keep your grubby little hands off my bottle.

zabzonk14• 3 years ago

Here in Canada the health authority has a "no safe levels" attitude towards absinthe, house-made mayo, rare burgers and many of the world's greatest cheeses. We've put "for external use only" warning labels on cooking ingredients like mustard oil and tamarind extracts. We've banned cooking wines entirely!

jeez, i use all of those here in the uk, except for absinthe, which you can't get [actually, you can, but not in your average offie or supermarket].

i remember when a bbc comedy program had a sketch "the worst thing you can hear when you turn on the tv" - it was a shit-eating voice, introducing a documentary, saying "welcome to canada; friendly giant of the north!"

sorry, it just popped into my brain and i had to share it - i don't really hate canadians.

marcus0x623• 3 years ago

How is it denialism? What I’m reading here is mostly people acknowledging there is some risk to alcohol consumption, but judging the risk to be worth it. Life is fundamentally risky.

kbelder• 3 years ago

I'd be perfectly fine never touching a drop of alcohol again, and think this sort of dire warning is crap. It's actively harming the dissemination of good health advice.

barbazoo10• 3 years ago

How would you frame it differently? If even small amounts over a long period of time gives you cancer, how else to state it?

TheFreim• 3 years ago

I've never had more than a literal sip, usually when parents let me see what a drink tasted like, and I don't plan on drinking and my reaction was much the same as other reasonable people in this thread. The framing of the title and contents is absurd.

thefz3• 3 years ago

So much denialism going on here, it's like talking to my alcoholic relative. This shouldn't trigger such a strong reaction, if it does, one should look into why that is.

Ever read any HN thread where the article states that to combat obesity one just have to eat less? ... yeah.

barbazoo10• 3 years ago

Not the same at all, I don't know what you're getting at.

sharno2• 3 years ago

First sane comment I see here.

simple-thoughts• 3 years ago

Fruit juice also contains small amounts of ethanol, so if the WHO is correct then do not replace your wine with fruit juice.

Or as is more likely, this is completely overblown just as the anti tobacco campaign has been overblown. Yes alcohol and tobacco aren’t good for you, no they are not imbued with magic properties where even 1 drop means cancer.

This type of thinking is common in pre scientific communities, where an object or substance is imbued with “bad energy” and having even the smallest contact with it contaminated the individual.

misiti37804• 3 years ago

I mean, the WHO has such an amazing track record at this point, did everyone forget about their COVID failures:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-57085505

misiti37804• 3 years ago

i drink a bottle of wine every night with dinner. i dont think it's healthy, i do it because it tastes delicious and enhances the experience.

VincentEvans• 3 years ago

I am sure this is absolutely the last scientific paper that comes out completely reversing the conclusion of the papers that came out before. This time they did it!

neverartful• 3 years ago

What was the first miracle performed by Jesus (as documented in the Christian bible)? Turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana (after they had run out of wine). Would Jesus have done this if alcohol consumption was against God's will? Food for thought. I'm not saying that God wants us to drink, but I think it provides some evidence that God doesn't view alcohol as inherently evil or bad (from Christian perspective). Abuse of alcohol is a different thing.

zabzonk14• 3 years ago

and of course they have the sacrament of communion. does this mean they are all doomed?

sharno2• 3 years ago

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-wine-banned-in-Islam-when-Jesus...

rr808• 3 years ago

Is alcohol essential for a good social life? Growing up in Europe it definitely was a big part of it. Now I look at my younger colleagues in the US and many never drink, rarely go out and are lonely and single. But maybe healthier?

zabzonk14• 3 years ago

being lonely is not so healthy. neither is sitting glued to your phone or console. might be better nursing a beer in a bar, watching football.

hackandthink2• 3 years ago

David Spiegelhalter of BUGS fame:

"So a total of 50,000 bottles of gin among these 1,600 people is associated with one extra health problem. Which still indicates a very low level of harm in drinkers drinking just more than the UK guidelines."

https://medium.com/wintoncentre/the-risks-of-alcohol-again-2...

The WHO is fear mongering.

Maybe it is good health politics, people are scared of alcohol and people will have a better live.

Maybe it would be better to communicate the risks more quantitavily. Not everyone is stupid.

ac29• 3 years ago

The way these risks are reported often makes this mistake. A statistically significant difference is reported as a "significant" difference, which means something different to lay people.

For example, if a change in diet increases the chances of getting a specific cancer from 1 in 1000 to 1.5 in 1000, that very well may be statistically significant. But, your odds of not getting that cancer go from 99.9% to 99.85%, which most people would not consider to be a meaningful difference.

hprotagonist2• 3 years ago

All things in moderation, including moderation.

neopuritans be damned.

deepsquirrelnet2• 3 years ago

Except meth. Not even once.

But seriously, I’m fully on board with this sentiment. I’m so tired of everything quickly going to extremes. I’m glad to know alcohol has risks at any level. I’ll take that information and use it how I see fit. Same with cannabis, same with sugar, same with adult content, same with lead-containing enamel on my plates.

Give me the information I need and let me be responsible for myself. Awareness of risks is what we should be doing. Forcing people into padded rooms so they don’t hurt themselves is not.

hprotagonist2• 3 years ago

Except meth. Not even once.

Unless you happen to be a hungarian mathematician, in which case: have at!

ohyes• 3 years ago

It’s good we’re clear on this, let’s not attempt prohibition again please.

JumpinJack_Cash• 3 years ago

1) The word 'health' should not be used because that's just a buzzword. The right word in this context could tentatively be 'lifespan', meaning that they are tentatively projecting that in the big sample of humans they surveyed those who drink 0mL of alcohol will stick around for longer compared to those who drink even 1mL. Meaning that in their model there is a correlation between the 2 data of sticking around for longer and alcohol intake.

2) Not even lifespan could be the right word because there are all sorts of stuff that alcohol facilitates which prolong lifespan by decreasing stress and anxiety, which in turn lower cortisol which is just as bad for lifespan when considered vis-a-vis alcohol.

As always the so called authorities spend too much time in the lab and are essentially monodimensional individuals who (no pun intended) fail to see the bigger picture.

makeitdouble3• 3 years ago

To identify a “safe” level of alcohol consumption, valid scientific evidence would need to demonstrate that at and below a certain level, there is no risk of illness or injury associated with alcohol consumption.

The premise of this “no level of consumption is safe” is this requirement to prove 0 risk.

If for instance drinking one glass everyday increases your cancer chances by 0.0000000001%, bringing it to 0. 0000300001%, it would still be considered unsafe, as your chances of cancer increased.

I see the logic, but that isn’t layman‘s categorization of safe or unsafe. And what are the actual base risk of cancer for a healthy individual ?

Taking a base of 60 million death per year, who’s numbers on cancer are of 10 million [0], where death by liver cancer are 830 000, roughly 1%. Given that those don’t all come from alcohol, and to reach that stage requires way more than standard consumption, the base risk feels already pretty low.

All in all, while this article is factual, it turns this facts in such a biased way it feels dogmatic at times. If we’re going to have serious discussions around alcohol, we shouldn’t start them like this.

[0] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cancer

P_I_Staker7• 3 years ago

Should we be establishing safe amounts of cigarette smoking? Safe amounts of gasoline to drink?

Alcohol users really don't like people pointing out that their habit isn't safe.

skeeter20207• 3 years ago

and yet we do this all the time. Your city probably produces an air quality alert that has some form of ranges; I doubt it says "one particulate of pollution found in the air; stop breathing!".

caskstrength• 3 years ago

Alcohol users really don't like people pointing out that their habit isn't safe.

In my experience that is because people who point that out usually eat all kinds of crap full of sugar and transfats, drink bubbly-sugary drinks (is Coke even better than a good beer?), live in noisy polluted cities and often work themselves to death for status or 3rd car for their family or whatever. But somehow my couple of bottles of beer on weekend is a health emergency and we need to tax it 1000% and only allow to sell if from 9 to 10 am on Mondays or something...

makeitdouble3• 3 years ago

Actually, yes.

Because there is such thing as occasional smokers, and having a curve of how much it affects them depending on how much they smoke would be helpful, instead of the generic “just don’t smoke” advice that they are already not following.

If you drank a spoonful of gasoline thinking it was something else, you wouldn’t want your generalist to tell you “that was bad for you” and keep it at that. How bad was it ? what effect should you expect at that dose ?

The real point I think is, a binary safe/unsafe is of no help in this discussion where people have wildly different drinking habits. I mean, even kids will ingest traces of alcohol in cakes, should we ban it from pound cakes ?

christophilus2• 3 years ago

Yeah. We should. You can smoke a cigar a month and not be considered a smoker by life insurance companies. You can smoke 4 a week and not be considered a smoker by health insurance companies. I’d love to see actual stats because I really enjoy a pipe and am willing to take a slight risk for it.

No level of automobile usage is safe, either, but I know the risks. My chances of dying due to driving (sober) are much higher than my chances of dying due to having a few beers a week.

I’m fine taking both of those risks.

welshwelsh• 3 years ago

Yes, we should.

A source of public health information should never say something vague like "cigarettes are bad for your health." They need to specify precisely how bad they are and how much damage is done with each individual cigarette.

Same with gasoline- if someone was to accidentally consume a small quantity of gasoline and wanted to know how much trouble they are in, they should be able to easily discover exactly how many ml of gasoline you need to drink to experience any associated problems. If there is a "safe" level, where there are no major side effects, that's something they need to know.

gus_massa2• 3 years ago

What about safe amount of chlorine to drink? Piss?

Chlorine is toxic, and you should not drink it, but tap water has a small amount to ensure to kill al bacterias. We had a cholera epidemic like 30 years ago, and the official recommendation was to add two drops of chlorine to water if you were unsure if it was clean enough. Also swimming pools have chlorine, more than tap water, but you are not suppose to drink too much of it.

A few years ago a moron pissed in a water reservoir and uploaded the video to youtube, so it was an unnecessary public outrage and the water authorities decided to release all the water and fill the reservoir again, as if birds and squirrels use the toilette. Don't ask about swimming pools.

Gasoline? Sometime food has contamination form industrial oil, gasoline and other stuff. It was common to use benzene to remove the natural oil from flour, but I think they changed to another safer solvent. Anyway, there are safety limits for all of that. Zero is very difficult because chromatography is too sensitive.

Cigarette smoking? Probably zero cigarettes is the best, but I remember a silly trend a few years ago about third hand smoke, i.e. how dangerous was to go to a home a few years after someone smoked there and you can still get a small amount of toxic compounds released by the walls contaminated with the smoke.

Asbesto? A single fiber can kill you, but two fibers have like the double of probability to kill you, and a million fibers are even more dangerous. In which case should a building be declared inhabitable?

criddell• 3 years ago

I think the only time my grandma drank that I know of is a thimble full of wine at church communion a few times a year. Would these scientists have advised her to skip that ceremony?

sokoloff2• 3 years ago

Which brings up a related question: is the religion part, the transportation to the place of worship, the risk of communicable disease, or the alcohol part the most dangerous in that day?

P_I_Staker7• 3 years ago

Yup. All those sick quitters severely fucked up the studies.

treespace8• 3 years ago

I fear for a world where alcohol is banned. I feel modern society is built on it.

A human is the only animal that is aware they will die. Also unique to humans is that we think about what others think. This makes us very anxious.

Alcohol is a known way to relax. It helps calm our minds down. No it's not good for our bodies. But it's very healthy to relax.

P_I_Staker7• 3 years ago

I fear for a world with illegal drugs. Plenty of people use stimulants and psychedelics as part of their religion, yet the courts have (IMO wrongly) allowed countless lives to be ruined because of it.

droidist2• 3 years ago

As someone who likes to vape, welcome to the party pal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OpIbiFmY60

vidanay• 3 years ago

Life is 100% fatal.

voidfunc• 3 years ago

Scientists: Living is harmful.

virtualritz• 3 years ago

No level of precaution can make crossing a street safe.

cramjabsyn• 3 years ago

Doing dry jan this year helped to change my perspective on alcohol. My current outlook is that its fine outside the house as an enjoyable social thing, but drinking at home isn’t worth it. I’m sure that view will change over the years.

There are so many things in life which no level is safe, exhaust fumes, microplastic exposure, radiation, the passage of time, the key to all of course is moderation and time between exposures. except that last one

Glyptodon• 3 years ago

Alcohol obviously causes more harm to society than guns and compared to guns has fewer beneficial uses.

2-718-281-828• 3 years ago

many here seem to get hung up about how even a tiny risk would technically justify the headline which therefore must be exaggerated when in fact it means first and foremost that alcohol consumption even in moderation is not good for you.

skeeter20207• 3 years ago

> To identify a “safe” level of alcohol consumption, valid scientific evidence would need to demonstrate that at and below a certain level, there is no risk of illness or injury associated with alcohol consumption.

This is ridiculous and boarders on intentionally false & misleading. We look for meaningful or demonstrated risk all the time in our assessments, not the absolute absense of it.

This is typical WHO nonsense similar to their ongoing clanging of the Covid alarm.

auveair3• 3 years ago

I think people are pretty tired of headlines like these tbh, it seems what it really say is "Alcohol risks are dose dependent" but it seems they wanted to go for a more ominous sounding headline, so the message is less effective.

jp57• 3 years ago

Alcohol ... has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer decades ago – this is the highest risk group, which also includes asbestos, radiation and tobacco.

But as I understand it we do have a notion of "safe" dosages of radiation.

Isn't this statement then like saying "no level of exposure to radiation is safe for our health?" Maybe I'm wrong but I would think that the risk of cancer from radiation increases smoothly as the dosage increases such that "there is no threshold at which the carcinogenic effects 'switch on'". Thus, by extension, nobody should ever fly on an airplane because the increased radiation exposure is inherently unsafe.

The thing is, we draw these threshold lines on smooth continua all the time. Nothing special happens to you at midnight on your eighteenth or twenty-first birthday. You are not meaningfully more intoxicated at 0.07 BAC than at 0.08.

To the extent that we expect agencies like the WHO to help us make informed, practical decisions regarding this sort of absolutist statement seems like an abdication of that responsibility. It equates all drinking of any amount into a single class with no gradations, which is clearly false. Drinking a lot has a lot more risk than drinking a little. And drinking a little may add only a little risk to a life that's full of other risk.

acidburnNSA• 3 years ago

The linear no threshold model of harm for radiation is debated but is the foundation of all nuclear protection policies. To policy, zero radiation is considered best and all increments above that, regardless of size or relative comparison to natural background radiation are bad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model

It's extremely hard to scientifically back this or challenge it due to the noise. Some people try to show that low dose radiation is measurably harmful while others try to show that it is beneficial (hormesis).

The best science suggests that measurable, statistically significant harm (in the form of increased risk of lifetime cancer) begins around 100 mSv acute or 300 mSv over a period of time. If you get that, your lifetime risk of cancer goes from 42% baseline up to 43%.

Natural background is about 3 mSv per year on average.

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/11340/beir_vii_fi...

bamboozled8• 3 years ago

So when you walk outside and into the sun, you're exposed to radiation, we need sunlight exposure to live, so again bringing up the parents comments regarding the need for "practical" advice.

perrygeo• 3 years ago

Keep in mind that WHO recommendations go well beyond alcohol's role as a carcinogen. Alcohol has widespread and significant negative impacts across many of internal systems [1]. Even compared to "hard drugs", alcohol is a dangerous mind-altering substance with objectively high risk factors.

Drawing a threshold on a distribution is inherently arbitrary, but it's also a) necessary for clear public communication and b) able to be refined by quantitative risk assessment models. As we have been refining that threshold and learning more about alcohol's impacts, that threshold for an equivalent level of risk has been dropping - i.e. our understanding of the "safe" level of alcohol has been approaching zero as we add more data to the model.

The WHO is simply making the logical conclusion of this convergence to zero. Picking a non-zero threshold is simply not possible without significant risks. Given all the well-documented harms of alcohol, it's irresponsible to claim that there is any such thing as a "safe amount". So the public health message shifts from moderation to abstinence.

You can choose to ignore the recommendations; go ahead and drink if it makes you feel better. But you can't ignore the many significant negative impacts or hide behind the dubious concept of "safe drinking". You're poisoning your body for recreation - own it.

[1] https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/health-professionals-communities/c...

indus2• 3 years ago

On flying on a plane vs alcohol:

It is need vs want debate.

marcopicentini• 3 years ago

Where could I find a good nutrition plan for good health?

credit_guy• 3 years ago

This is such a silly attitude.

Let's say if I drink 3 drinks per day I shorten my life expectancy by 5 years. And if I drink 3 drinks a year, I shorten my life expectancy by 5 seconds. Ok, no level is safe, but noone gives a damn about losing 5 seconds from their life expectancy.

motohagiography• 3 years ago

Societies that have banned alcohol, how do their longevity and other quality of life metrics and outcomes rank against ones where alcohol is available?

In my late adolescence, an old friend and I had a joke about "champagne socialists," where we decided instead we would be "single malt anarchists," and we would meet at a hotels rooftop bar to drink whiskey we could barely afford, in a place we were barely welcome, and argue about how to solve the worlds problems. Who knew that decades later enjoying a few drams and a cigar would become a revolutionary act?

If I could coin a term for all these bureaucratic false-concerns based on what they have in common (alcohol, meat, tobacco, cars, gas stoves, humor, firearms, nuclear families, heteronoramtivity, truth, etc.) it would be that they are all "anti-fraternal," and motivated by undermining the formation and relationships that historically present sources of resistance to political dominion. This advisory isn't about "health" or alcohol, it's a policy dogwhistle. Every single one of the people behind these pronouncements and organizations openly hates the idea of "bro's," or any group of men with a shared identity, and restricting access to alcohol is one of the key stages in consolidating a regime.

I keep a bottle of blantons in a box somewhere for just in case the world ends, or descends into apocalyptic bedlam as a result of yet another one of historys antagonists finding their way. It would be a shame to open that box.

MailleQuiMaille• 3 years ago

I realized when I stopped drinking that I thought I needed it to take the edge off, to relax or to be more social. It was all lies. I turned to meditation for when I’m stressed, and the rest I can do it sober. I’d say not drinking anymore is top 5 in my best life decisions, up there with my choice of career and partner.

RalfWausE• 3 years ago

The problem is: No alcohol wozld be much more harmful for society these days... if i couldn't relax and unwind with a drink i would surely do something involving a chainsaw in a short matter of time...

SergeAx• 3 years ago

Sipping my glass of Barolo, living dangerously!

spurgu• 3 years ago

The first thought I have reading this headline is:

"No level of driving is safe for our health"

indus2• 3 years ago

“Alcohol blocks REM sleep, and as a result, says University of California, Berkeley, professor Matthew Walker[1], drinking can make you forget new information.”

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Walker_(scientist)

source: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/12/even-smal...

leonroy• 3 years ago

Out of curiosity I looked up cancer rates in Islamic countries (which typically) have far lower rates of alcohol consumption. Seems there is a significantly lower rate of cancer there by as much as 2-3x compared to countries in which alcohol is more widely consumed: https://jenci.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s43046-022-0...

There are doubtless other factors at play but the data at least seems to correlate with the WHO's recommendation.

AlbinoDaffy• 3 years ago

After reading through comments, I'm just glad that Gen Z drinks less than Gen Y (that drinks less than Gen X (that drinks less than a subsequent gen, boomers probably)), because

* I should not have to explain why I don't drink, simple 'no' suffices

* I should not have to listen, that alcohol is not too bad/is completely harmless/is fine in moderation/is actually required in social life

And the best thing - they do it completely voluntary (or maybe because it's crazy expensive, but the outcome is still good, so...)

As for the local denialists: we live in poluted cities walking around polution generating machines just meters apart from them. Yes, it is unhealthy, but it is our choice to live like that, because EVs aren't that prevalent yet and living in the woods in a hut would not be enough for most

Go, smoke cigarettes, drink wine and hit a pot once in a while if you need it. It's your life. 0 alcohol intake is a recomendation, not a requirement. It is harmful, people should consider for themselves if they need it as copium or for the taste or for whatever else reason

It shouldn't be argued "but how much is bad-bad compared to just sligtly bad, where's my curve?". Make the curve for yourself, consider your situation and your needs

thefz3• 3 years ago

Why does it always have to be a generation clash?

Besides, nobody outside the Us thinks this way. You are being pushed one against each other.

No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health

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