[allturtles]

Arsenic is in all kinds of foods, if you made the claim "no amount of arsenic consumption is safe", you would be arguing that basically everyone's diet is unsafe. What does that even mean?

To take the claim "no amount of alcohol consumption is safe" seriously would mean you shouldn't eat bread, which contains a small amount of alcohol.

[tomtheelder]

> To take the claim "no amount of alcohol consumption is safe" seriously would mean you shouldn't eat bread, which contains a small amount of alcohol.

No, it doesn't mean this. What they mean is that any amount of alcohol consumption causes some amount of harm. From the research I have seen it seems to be more or less linear. Minuscule consumption means minimal harm.

The implication isn't that you or anyone else should necessarily reduce your consumption to zero. It's that it should not be assumed that there some level of consumption that causes no harm or is beneficial (as previously believed). That is what the phrase "no amount is safe" commonly means in medicine. It is a purely medical recommendation.

This is totally separate from a dietary guideline, which would weigh the risks of alcohol against the social reality of it's consumption. That is the way that you seem to be interpreting it.

Also I'm not the person you responded to originally, but interestingly it seems like arsenic, in tiny quantities, is actually essential to our biology.

[allturtles]

> any amount of alcohol consumption causes some amount of harm

There is no guarantee that you will suffer harm from a single drink. What it really means is that any amount of alcohol consumption carries some (possibly minute) risk of harm. This is not, IMO, equivalent to "unsafe", which generally means something well outside the bounds of normal risks that most people already take on in their everyday lives.

If we accepted that "some risk of harm" = unsafe, we would have to describe using the stairs as unsafe, taking a shower as unsafe, putting up Christmas lights as unsafe, etc.

[tomtheelder]

And medically those are unsafe. The crucial part, though, is that that's not at all to say you shouldn't do them. You are simply using a different understanding of the word safe than they are. This is a medical brief aimed at experts who should have no trouble understanding what claims are and are not being made.

This is not a lifestyle or dietary recommendation. This is not a cost benefit analysis. This is a medical brief that states that no amount of consumption is safe. The takeaway categorically should not be that we should all reduce our intake to zero, which seems to be how folks are interpreting this.

For what it's worth, I say all this as a regular drinker who has no intention of ceasing drinking.

[allturtles]

I would argue that if those things are unsafe, the term unsafe has no useful meaning, i.e. life is unsafe.

It's a policy brief, not a medical brief, it is pro-abstinence and recommends a variety of alcohol control policies, short of actual prohibition:

"- Call for strict regulation of alcohol products

- Advocate for minimum pricing of alcohol products

- Build capacity internally and among peers to promote cessation of alcohol use and abstinence from alcohol

...

- Prioritise alcohol control in national agendas for health and support policy coherence between health and other sectors"

etc.

[babyshake]

At least death is safe. As in, dying will not increase your risk of death.

[dabbledash]

If time word “unsafe” means “carries more than zero risk” then it isn’t very useful to me to know whether a doctor considers something unsafe.

[tomtheelder]

Yes, but it's useful to them. That's the point.

[pasabagi]

What about: 'No amount of smoke inhalation is safe for the lungs'?

Obviously, if you live in a city, you're going to find yourself inhaling smoke from time to time, but it's still the case that it should be avoided. It's not extreme to think of alcohol as 'always negative' but also to accept it's a common and basically unavoidable toxin.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

That's a hard argument to make. "2nd hand smoke" is (for now) unavoidable (though has decreased dramatically over the last decade or two). "2nd hand alcohol" is not really a thing at all. We choose to drink it, or we choose not to (ignoring heinous acts of coerced drinking).

[djur]

Having a fireplace, barbecue, outdoor fire pit, or going camping with a campfire, are all situations where people intentionally choose to engage in activities that cause them to inhale smoke. Those activities might contribute to a healthy lifestyle in the whole. Similarly, social activities that include alcohol consumption can be analyzed as a whole, without the pretense that they can always be made 'dry'. There is no 'dry' wine tasting.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Tobacco smoke and fire smoke are generally entirely unrelated from a health perspective.

Going to a wine tasting is a decision to drink wine (though if it occured at someone's house rather than a public or commercial facility, I could imagine that the hosts might accomodate a non-drinking partner or something like that).

[pcrh]

>Tobacco smoke and fire smoke are generally entirely unrelated from a health perspective.

But not from a scientific perspective.

[slothtrop]

Indeed, and cyanide as well for instance. Neither are "necessary" either. I don't think necessity has any bearing on the discussion. Ultimately the question is whether moderate alcohol consumption poses a significant health risk, and "no safe amount" avoids answering this.