i get what you’re saying, but what i’m wondering is, while alcohol is bad for your liver and damages your health in that way, it also leads to social occasions and less loneliness, i guess. so you might have psychological improvements; and was that also tested for?
Comment on Rich ppl live longer
tmyakal@infosec.pub 2 weeks agoOP is referring to the j-curve historically seen in studies about drinking. Because researchers didn’t control for people who stopped drinking after years of abuse or people who couldn’t drink because of other health issues, it looked like having 0 drinks per day led to worse health outcomes than 1-2 drinks per day. Because of that, many health organizations spent decades telling people that 1-2 drinks per day was better for you than 0 drinks per day.
Someone finally controlled for those variables a few years ago, and the j-curve vanished. Most health organizations now say they’re is no amount of alcohol that is safe to consume.
So it’s got nothing to do with Gen Z drinking habit specifically, and the science has been corrected since. But a lot of people still internalized and parrot the “1-2 drinks is healthy” thing.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
tmyakal@infosec.pub 2 weeks ago
Alcohol on its own does not cause social occasions or reduce loneliness. Plenty of people drink alone, and plenty of people gather socially without drinking.
That said, while the advice from a health standpoint is that no amount of alcohol is completely safe to drink, humans do risky shit all the time for fun or convenience. More people get hurt in car accidents than develop alcohol-related diseases, but no one is stopping driving. The difference in outcomes between people who have zero drinks per day versus 1-2 drinks per day is much less than the difference between 1-2 and 5+ drinks. So occasional/light drinking is still relatively low-risk. It’s just not actively good for you as previously thought.
jdr@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
No amount of alcohol is safe? Is that like saying no amount of driving is safe?
Dave@lemmy.nz 2 weeks ago
Sure. Any driving you do increases your risk of death. But it’s likely you need to drive for other reasons that reduce your risk of death (like buying food).
Drinking is different because no one needs to drink.
jdr@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Haha, ymmv but I find driving to be unnecessary
Dave@lemmy.nz 2 weeks ago
Yes but this depends significantly on where you live.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Yep.
Viceversa@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
alcohol is driving?
jdr@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Exactly!
I meant that plenty of people drink reasonable amounts alcohol all the time with no apparent issues.
GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
It means that any amount of alcohol increases the odds of you dying sooner or having other negative health effects sooner (which will lead to you dying sooner). There is no amount that won’t increase those odds. It says nothing about how much any given drink would impact your life span. I’m not saying it’s negligible or significant, but I can’t be bothered to look it up.