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Comment by psergeant | Hacker News Reader

> there is no known safe level of alcohol

I wonder why countries that are dry don’t have better health outcomes than those that aren’t

Because the number of confounding factors if you look at whole countries is so huge that you couldn't attribute it to alcohol even if you found an association.

I would argue the availability of factors that confound it suggest that the effect of moderate alcohol consumption must be tiny

Look at american religious groups such as Mormons or Seventh Day Adventists. You could even go even further and look at the health effects of people who have left those religions and began drinking afterwards, compared to their siblings who stayed in. It would be near impossible to get this data, but you could even do a twin study on this. This would essentially isolate the effects of alcohol, as otherwise the lifestyles are nearly idential in terms of anything that would relate to physical health.

I wonder if comparing different populations in Utah and adjusting for % mormon would work? Provo vs SLC for example

the lifestyles are nearly idential in terms of anything that would relate to physical health

Well, that's begging the question; how do we know that the other differences don't relate to physical health if we must do comparative studies to know if one difference (alcohol consumption) does?

I imagine leaving the Mormons has some effect on your health. Social connections and stress are pretty important.

Seventh Day Adventists are also vegetarian, which almost certainly has health implications of some sort.

There could be confounding variables, i.e. a government or culture that bans alcohol or consumes little alcohol may be likely to have other attributes that lead to worse health outcomes.

Very few countries are genuinely alcohol-free, many things happen underground, and with unsanitized liquors.

Also, I wonder whether less alcohol drives global happiness up or down. Alcohol is a depression factor but could help creating bonds, massively, at a corporate or national level – so, live slightly shorter but happier?

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