My health econ students love to hear that our best data suggests moderate drinking is good for health. New better data continues that trend: [We study] the association between alcohol consumption and all-cause mortality over 20 years among 1,824 older adults…. Controlling only for age and gender, compared to moderate drinkers, abstainers had a more than 2 times increased mortality risk, heavy drinkers had 70% increased risk, and light drinkers had 23% increased risk. A model controlling for former problem drinking status, existing health problems, and key sociodemographic and social-behavioral factors, as well as for age and gender, substantially reduced the mortality effect for abstainers compared to moderate drinkers. However, even after adjusting for all covariates, abstainers and heavy drinkers continued to show increased mortality risks of 51 and 45%, respectively, compared to moderate drinkers. (
you and this study are making an obvious reasoning error - concluding you know the direction of causality. i propose that personalities that tend to moderation are healthier than extremist personalities.
Not only anecdotal, but completely irrelevant to the data being discussed. The study _specifically_ controlled for "former problem drinkers", and made clear that "heavy drinkers" did not share the benefits described.
Cardiovascular conditioning is arguably good for most healthy adults, but no one would recommend it for someone dying of congestive heart failure. _You_ can't handle drinking. It doesn't necessarily follow that no one else can either. Sulfa drugs are a 'good thing', but if they cause a severe allergic reaction, I suggest avoiding them too.
As much as I hate to say it, this may be an example of the public having too little understanding of too much data.
Hmm, I wonder if the precedent in Citizens United could be used to challenge such a ban. I suspect the answer is no with respect to outright ads since they are commercial speech but it's an interesting question whether a beer company could fund 'public service' messages not mentioning their product that conveyed the conclusions of these studies.
Are you sure that that was a factor in the study, though? It says in the third paragraph that that was taken into account and wasn't a variable ("Former Problem drinker").
We can easily make a case that alcohol has almost no positive effect on health whatever, that it is, rather, the type of individual who easily moderates alcohol use that is the key to superior mortality statistics.The same could be said of eating.
Has anyone out here had an alcoholic in the family? Has he/she started by drinking a liter of whiskey a day? Stuck 'up the benefits' of moderate consumption to where the sun does not shine! You cant talk about this in isolation. As humans and as far as alcohol is concerned we cant not drink moderately and usually we find this out when it's too late. Has anyone thought of what disastrous effects these 'studies' might have when popularized globally? Actually i was looking for info on priming and stumbled upon this site and found this article... but I've seen people discussing it somewhere else before...it spreads.. and I'm not sure if the authors have thought about the ramifications and ethical aspects of it...all they know is how to play with statistics and sure want some attention. well - you got that... go to hell
The people with the best data sets on mortality (insurance companies), offer discounts on premiums if the insured drinks some amount X or less per day. Since the insurance companies actually have money riding on these transactions, why wouldn't they set the discount for some amount between X and Y, with no discount above or below?
You could argue that the insurance companies are simply making a mistake based on this data, but it's a reasonable inference that they do know what they are doing (they stay in business, after all), and the actual risk of health issues (not just death) varies with consumption above a certain level. I find it a little odd that they ONLY think they look at is chance of death over a 20 year period. What about other ill effects of alcohol consumption?
I think jk has the best thoughts. Epidemiological research is great, but unless you can show me a mechanism for why something is true, I am going to think you missed something.
@Floccina: Most people decrying speech by corporations couldn't give an adequate definition of what a corporation is, so the distinction will be lost on them.
Saying they controlled for age is somewhat misleading. All the folks involved were in the 55-65 range. As such, the study doesn't necessarily tell you anything about the lifetime effect of alcohol consumption. For example, some heavy drinkers don't even make it to 55.
You can't have it both ways. You say "abstainers were alcoholics who had already done the I damage to their bodies" but then suggest your husband died quickly from a "relapse." But if so then choosing to drink does have health implications, even if one had been drinking lots before.
The fact that the genes for alcohol flush reaction is so widespread shows that drinking alcohol almost certainly decreased genetic fitness at least for East Asians for a significant period of time. (The idea is that those with the alcohol flush reaction tend to refrain from drinking, and since the genes have no other apparent adaptive function, it must be the non-drinking that increased their genetic fitness relative to drinkers.)
But that doesn't necessarily imply that it's unhealthy to drink alcohol now. For example, the decrease in genetic fitness may have been caused by the extra money that drinkers spent buying alcohol, and not by any health effects. Or it may be that changes in genes or the environment has made alcohol healthier than it used to be.
What I'd like to see is a study comparing the current or recent health/mortality of people with the genes for alcohol flush reaction (and do not drink because of it) with their siblings who do not have the genes (and do drink). That would constitute a near-perfect natural experiment to test the hypothesis that alcohol is healthy, with randomization between the treatment group and the control group provided by Mendelian inheritance.
And by the way, to underscore my comment I will share with you that my husband got sober (abstaining from alcohol for 25 years), relapsed and was dead within six years from alcohol. It is cunning and baffling, do not let it fool you, too.
This study, however, if you read the whole thing, goes on to say that most of the abstainers were alcoholics who had already done the I damage to their bodies with alcohol that they went on to die from later. I am a recovering alcoholic and believe me, I used to feel the same way, that alcohol was not the problem, by any means. Today I am suffering from several diseases that are debilitating, turning my life, at 51, into what I expected it to be at 85 I never dreamed, through 32 years of drinking, that this could ever happen to me. It was only the last six years that were pure hell, I considered the previous 26 years a success. How wrong I was, I'd gve anything for those years back and the ones I;m losing due to alcohol.
Another hypothesis-- people who hate the taste of alcohol may be supertasters (detest bitter flavors). Maybe part of the health effect is that people who can enjoy alcohol are also apt to eat more dark green veggies and grapefruit? Or maybe some of the good effects are actually from coffee.
How do the authors define "light" "moderate" and "heavy drinking"
The study does me no good if I can't classify my own drinking habits in the same manner as the authors.
you and this study are making an obvious reasoning error - concluding you know the direction of causality. i propose that personalities that tend to moderation are healthier than extremist personalities.
Not only anecdotal, but completely irrelevant to the data being discussed. The study _specifically_ controlled for "former problem drinkers", and made clear that "heavy drinkers" did not share the benefits described.
Cardiovascular conditioning is arguably good for most healthy adults, but no one would recommend it for someone dying of congestive heart failure. _You_ can't handle drinking. It doesn't necessarily follow that no one else can either. Sulfa drugs are a 'good thing', but if they cause a severe allergic reaction, I suggest avoiding them too.
As much as I hate to say it, this may be an example of the public having too little understanding of too much data.
Hmm, I wonder if the precedent in Citizens United could be used to challenge such a ban. I suspect the answer is no with respect to outright ads since they are commercial speech but it's an interesting question whether a beer company could fund 'public service' messages not mentioning their product that conveyed the conclusions of these studies.
Are you sure that that was a factor in the study, though? It says in the third paragraph that that was taken into account and wasn't a variable ("Former Problem drinker").
We can easily make a case that alcohol has almost no positive effect on health whatever, that it is, rather, the type of individual who easily moderates alcohol use that is the key to superior mortality statistics.The same could be said of eating.
Has anyone out here had an alcoholic in the family? Has he/she started by drinking a liter of whiskey a day? Stuck 'up the benefits' of moderate consumption to where the sun does not shine! You cant talk about this in isolation. As humans and as far as alcohol is concerned we cant not drink moderately and usually we find this out when it's too late. Has anyone thought of what disastrous effects these 'studies' might have when popularized globally? Actually i was looking for info on priming and stumbled upon this site and found this article... but I've seen people discussing it somewhere else before...it spreads.. and I'm not sure if the authors have thought about the ramifications and ethical aspects of it...all they know is how to play with statistics and sure want some attention. well - you got that... go to hell
The people with the best data sets on mortality (insurance companies), offer discounts on premiums if the insured drinks some amount X or less per day. Since the insurance companies actually have money riding on these transactions, why wouldn't they set the discount for some amount between X and Y, with no discount above or below?
You could argue that the insurance companies are simply making a mistake based on this data, but it's a reasonable inference that they do know what they are doing (they stay in business, after all), and the actual risk of health issues (not just death) varies with consumption above a certain level. I find it a little odd that they ONLY think they look at is chance of death over a 20 year period. What about other ill effects of alcohol consumption?
I think jk has the best thoughts. Epidemiological research is great, but unless you can show me a mechanism for why something is true, I am going to think you missed something.
@Floccina: Most people decrying speech by corporations couldn't give an adequate definition of what a corporation is, so the distinction will be lost on them.
Saying they controlled for age is somewhat misleading. All the folks involved were in the 55-65 range. As such, the study doesn't necessarily tell you anything about the lifetime effect of alcohol consumption. For example, some heavy drinkers don't even make it to 55.
You can't have it both ways. You say "abstainers were alcoholics who had already done the I damage to their bodies" but then suggest your husband died quickly from a "relapse." But if so then choosing to drink does have health implications, even if one had been drinking lots before.
Some more thoughts on this topic.
The fact that the genes for alcohol flush reaction is so widespread shows that drinking alcohol almost certainly decreased genetic fitness at least for East Asians for a significant period of time. (The idea is that those with the alcohol flush reaction tend to refrain from drinking, and since the genes have no other apparent adaptive function, it must be the non-drinking that increased their genetic fitness relative to drinkers.)
But that doesn't necessarily imply that it's unhealthy to drink alcohol now. For example, the decrease in genetic fitness may have been caused by the extra money that drinkers spent buying alcohol, and not by any health effects. Or it may be that changes in genes or the environment has made alcohol healthier than it used to be.
What I'd like to see is a study comparing the current or recent health/mortality of people with the genes for alcohol flush reaction (and do not drink because of it) with their siblings who do not have the genes (and do drink). That would constitute a near-perfect natural experiment to test the hypothesis that alcohol is healthy, with randomization between the treatment group and the control group provided by Mendelian inheritance.
And by the way, to underscore my comment I will share with you that my husband got sober (abstaining from alcohol for 25 years), relapsed and was dead within six years from alcohol. It is cunning and baffling, do not let it fool you, too.
This study, however, if you read the whole thing, goes on to say that most of the abstainers were alcoholics who had already done the I damage to their bodies with alcohol that they went on to die from later. I am a recovering alcoholic and believe me, I used to feel the same way, that alcohol was not the problem, by any means. Today I am suffering from several diseases that are debilitating, turning my life, at 51, into what I expected it to be at 85 I never dreamed, through 32 years of drinking, that this could ever happen to me. It was only the last six years that were pure hell, I considered the previous 26 years a success. How wrong I was, I'd gve anything for those years back and the ones I;m losing due to alcohol.
Another hypothesis-- people who hate the taste of alcohol may be supertasters (detest bitter flavors). Maybe part of the health effect is that people who can enjoy alcohol are also apt to eat more dark green veggies and grapefruit? Or maybe some of the good effects are actually from coffee.
There seem to be a lot of alcohol related deaths each year, I wonder if they really were taken into account when promoting "alcohol is healthy":
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/H...
Or a lie that you want to.