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Comment by vanusa | Hacker News Reader

“Based on recent evidence, it has been concluded that there is “no safe level of alcohol consumption”(5)

Which definitely takes artistic license with what the cited article actually said, which was:

   Our results show that the safest level of drinking is none.

Which is exactly like saying "The safest level of poppy seed consumption is none". Which of course completely dodges the question you'd really want to ask which is: "How many poppy seeds can you eat per day with either no or negligible negative health effects?" And in any case nowhere near equivalent to saying:

   It has been concluded that "there is no save level of poppy seed consumption".

Moral of the story being -- the byline quote at the top of the article:

"The evidence is clear: any level of alcohol consumption can lead to loss of healthy life"

Is not only supported by the research it cites -- but irresponsibly alarmist.

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I don't think that misstates the lancet article, and i also think this information in the lancet article is useful.

There is a long belief that e.g. red wine is good for the heart, or in many places there are some herb liquors that old people drink thinking it will bring them benefits. Here the lancet unequivocally states that to our best evidence no alcohol is best. You're from now on not drinking red wine for your heart but for pleasure.

Here the lancet unequivocally states that to our best evidence no alcohol is best.

The thing is this proscription is essentially useless. It's like saying "to our best evidence no sugar is best".

So should you eat that piece of chocolate cake or should you not?

You're from now on not drinking red wine for your heart but for pleasure.

We knew that already. But it still doesn't tell us whether drinking, say, 3 or fewer glasses of wine per week has a significant negative health impact or not. For any actual measure of "significant".

Maybe figure 4 from the Lancet article [1] mentioned above is helpful here. It is titled “Relative risk curves for selected conditions by number of standard drinks consumed daily.”

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

Interesting graphs.

What's interesting in particular is that for several categories (such as ischemic heart disease) the relative risk does seem to go down rather decisively for up to 6(!) standard drinks per day (which they note is "offset" by the increased risk in other categories -- including cancer).

So going by their own combined/weighted risk in Figure 5 - we see a curve that is essentially flat in the region between 0 and 1 - that is, showing negligible risk (asymptotically zero) at 1 drink per day, rising to more concerning levels starting at 2 or 3 per day.

And that's the decisive issue here: "Is having an average of 1 drink per day really any more risky than 0 per day?" The only take-way I can get from the article is that there's essentially no difference in risk level in this interval.

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