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Comment by kspacewalk2 | Hacker News Reader

Everyone on this topic seems to have their own studies to back polar opposite conclusions.

Canada is going the opposite direction[0], taking the position that "no amount of alcohol is safe to consume".

[0] https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/what-you-should-know-about-can...

I might be mixing up my jargon here, but I was under the impression that "no safe amount" and similar phrases refer to a standard of categorization that is scientifically meaningful but usually offers little practical guidance relative to common lifestyle patterns (e.g. by this standard there's also no safe amount of wood dust to inhale and no safe amount of cured meat to eat). My understanding is that the risks of alcohol consumption are highly nonlinear, so the upshot is that while the risk of something like 5 standard drinks per week is not zero, it's so small for the average person that the stress of actively worrying about it might very well be worse for their health than the alcohol itself.

Given that yeast leavened bread is around 1.5% alcohol and food can naturally ferment in your gut, it’s nearly certain that there is in fact some safe amount of regular alcohol intake that’s well within the bounds of homeostasis and thus as safe as anything can be.

But that’s not how people drink is it? People use alcohol to intentionally disrupt homeostasis. It’s certainly plausible that there is no safe regularly taken psychoactive dose. And it’s incontrovertible that seeking the psychoactive effects of alcohol can have unfortunate side effects.

All alcohol has carcinogenic properties. That's just a simple fact. Cancer is bad. Anything that increases our chances of cancer is bad. And considering alcohol has no beneficial qualities when consumed, it's technically all downside.

So while bread may have some alcoholic content, it has other beneficial properties. As does the sun, even though it is a huge carcinogen.

However, I do like to remind people, that while nearly everyone with lung cancer is a smoker, most smokers do not get lung cancer.

So, do what you will with your own body, but know the risks and don't try and downplay disappointing information because you don't like it.

If the State of California is to be believed, basically everything I come in contact with in my daily life has carcinogenic properties. That's just a simple fact. Thus the actual target is to limit contact with carcinogens such that the body can maintain homeostasis. Cancer is a particularly unpleasant and potentially permanent failure of maintaining homeostasis, but that doesn't change the general principle.

Also there is a concept called hormesis, which tells us that in some situations being exposed to stressors, which is to say stimuli that temporarily disrupt homeostasis, actually improves the body's overall ability to maintain homeostasis.

None of that is to downplay the well known risks of alcohol abuse. It's an avoidable cause of death and disability.

It seems extremely reductive to say people don’t get positive effects from alcohol. That’s why they drink it!

I've read a lot of studies on alcohol and health. Broadly, I've come to a few conclusions.

* Alcohol raises your risk of cancer, and this effect is exponential. Your risk at a 6 pack a week is minimal. Your risk at a 12 pack a week is moderate. Your risk at a case a week is enough to start seriously increasing your risk of dying.

* Alcohol lowers your risk of cardiovascular disease at low doses (6/12 pack), but this effect is swamped by your risks of cancer and liver disease above that amount

* A lot of recent studies with the most negative outlook on alcohol include negative externalities like drunk driving, domestic violence, etc. While this is accurate on a population level, it tells you nothing about your individual risk.

Overall, the risks have to be balanced against how much you personally enjoy consuming it. At *moderate* levels of drinking, the risks are not a personal concern for me. I would argue most peoples diet, exercise, and sleep habits have a much higher effect on their long term health.

Does these studies mean "12 beers over the course of a week but like no more than one every 14 hours" or "Whatever, just don't start another 12 pack this week"?

Coze I'm more of a "12 beers at once" guy. By "I'll have a beer" I mean a sixpack.

I think anything over 4 beers in a sitting is considered really bad for you (read, liver damage)

So basically we still understand nothing about nutrition.

Not like that's new...

FWIW this policy change has been widely criticized by Canadians for being based on a flawed analysis

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/harry-rakowski-how-much-alc...

Haha - good old national post. They also said smoking is good for surviving Covid. I will seek my health info elsewhere.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/colby-cosh-where-theres-smo...

I’d love to hear your detailed critique of that article

One thing that gets neglected as well is that normalizing low level drinking encourages high level drinking, and that high level drinking not only has a negative impact on the individual but on society at large. It’s much easier for people who are susceptible to overindulge when going out drinking is considered to be the default social activity, and when events are expected to have alcohol.

One of the reasons why the fight against cigarettes has been so successful is because smoking has mostly disappeared from public and social settings.

I don't consider switching from cigarettes to vapes the disappearance of smoking. I think it has just changed our perception of it to one that people are accepting of.

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