[robwwilliams]

No, I disagree that these flips are just moody periodic “flips of a coin”. The target article explains very clearly WHY the flip. Here are the three main reasons:

1. An ascertainment bias that is built in to studies that recruit and compare “non-drinkers” to light drinkers. Non-drinkers may not be as inherently healthy as light drinkers. They may have had adverse effects earlier in their lives due to alcohol.

2. Since the 1970s most of NIH research has focused on alcoholism and alcohol abuse—-not on the epidemiologucal impact of drinking alcohol. These are entire distinct topics. Alcoholism is treated as a “disease” in the same way as other addictions. But a significant majority of drinkers are not alcoholics, and what is the impact on mortality of alcohol use on all types of age related diseases.

3. There was a long-term phantasy that resveratrol in red wine is responsible for the French paradox metabolic benefits. That gas been debunked for a decade but still lives in our brains as a zombie meme.