[chiefalchemist]

> I´m all for science on alcohol abuse and effects of moderate drinking

But don't we have that? And have recently been getting more and more of that? Most specifically, as I understand the current science: alcohol (e.g., red wine) in any form and any amount is not good for you. Full stop.

I do drink, still, moderately. But given all I hearing / reading, I'm giving more and more consideration to going dry. The "benefits" (i.e., being social, de-stressor, etc) don't seem to be worth it.

[notatoad]

"not good for you" is not science. how "not good for you" is it? what specifically does it do? can you counter the effects?

cookies are also "not good for you. full stop". but they're also not all that bad for you in reasonable quantities.

[bluGill]

It raises your risk of cancer. Not by much, but I'm not aware of anything might outweigh that effect. (you can have a social life without it) I'm not aware of anything that counters those effects.

[chiefalchemist]

Two things:

1. No one dies from "cookies poisoning". No one loses a liver or other organs from too many cookies. Alcohol, by definition, is a poison. The comparison to chocolate chips simply doesn't apply.

2. While I have my general doubts about the WHO in some cases, this was the quickest and easiest thing I could find.

https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-...

[AlecSchueler]

1. No one dies from "cookies poisoning". No one loses a liver or other organs from too many cookies. Alcohol, by definition, is a poison. The comparison to chocolate chips simply doesn't apply.

No, but too much sugar/butter does cause health issues. There's a certain threshold for damage. Does alcohol cause damage to offspring via genetic alteration to sperm? Perhaps it does, but we can't really say anything concrete about it based on a study of this quality.

[chiefalchemist]

I'm well aware of the problems cause by sugar and lack of exercise. But, again, alcohol is different. It is literally a poison. Sugar is not a poison in that same sense.

[fasterik]

Most claims about whether something is "healthy" or "unhealthy" rely on single studies with small sample/effect sizes. We know that many studies fail to replicate, and in the absence of preregistration there are researcher degrees of freedom for scientists to find whatever they want to find in the data.

I don't know about the current status of alcohol research, but unless there is a large body of replicated work supporting a claim, we should be skeptical of it.