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Comment by objektif | Hacker News Reader

I am very skeptical about these side effect claims. Do you have hard data supporting this or doctor hearsay. Years ago I remember watching Charlie Rose Brain series where one of the professors said something like “ we know of two drugs that we are certain are very safe for human beings: alcohol and aspirin.”

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> “ we know of two drugs that we are certain are very safe for human beings: alcohol and aspirin.”

I am not sure I understand. We know alcohol isn’t safe, let alone very safe, in any quantity. So immediately this seems contradictory?

That appears to have been the point.

Anecdata: even a few days of low-dose aspirin causes me terrible GI pain and exacerbates an otherwise 30-year dormant ulcer. I would love to be able to take it, but I can't tolerate it at all.

What was your dosage? Tried dissolving in water?

Have you tried the "enteric coated" aspirin? The coating is supposed to resist dissolving until the pill is well past your stomach.

Aspirin's bleeding risk is very well studied. You can find many papers showing between around 30% increase in the brain, and around 60% for the gut.

Alcohol has a bunch of recent studies showing that no amount is good, and as little as two drinks per week yield measurable negative impacts.

what if I do all the other things that go along with drinking for health, like speak Italian or French while I drink?

First search hit:

  They report preventable deaths caused by alcohol is higher in France than anywhere else in Europe.

Speaking French doesn't appear to help you. Maybe Italian is better.

meh, I just care about all-cause mortality. I'll accept some preventable death risk if it's outweighed by non-preventable death risk improvement.

I think the French hit a good sweet spot between high alcohol consumption and high life expectancy. Quite a male-female disparity though. Maybe Irish do better at 0.2years reduction for an extra 0.4l of alcohol per year

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_c...

Sounds like bs if you look at Russian numbers.

Those are both drugs with very significant risks

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