patrick.net

Ceffer says

I know this pisses people off, but so be it, alcohol mythology is just that, mythology to reassure the customers.

I agree with you here. Everything is a sale so to speak. So alcohol needs to continue to sell. I'd just argue that % and quantities are the bigger issue. Liquor like whisky and vodka are god awful substances. I'd have no issue if they were banned. People get hammered on them all the time, too quick and too easy to hide.

I don't think outright prohibition would ever work, but I'm actually okay with banning certain levels of alcohol sold in stores. I like my beer, but I also don't like being full all the time or fat. Vodka I'd be dead.

I don't believe in prohibition. The problem is counter educating against the pushers putting out baloney to reassure their 'victims'. It is pretty impossible to outspend and out bullshit the pushers, alcohol is too ancient a social habit.

I don't care if people drink. I generally do not want to be around people past their second drink or so, because they are not the same, and even if they think they are 'better' because they like the feeling, they aren't. They become increasingly absent and detached from their surroundings, but clueless that they are. Of course, the lack of inhibitions is not always flattering.

One Irish guy in our tri valley court must be made of forged Irish steel, because he is basically an alcoholic Eveready rabbit and lives on into his seventies. He was a successful executive. He never gains weight, still golfs, is highly sociable. He has had adverse effects, including angering one female neighbor we had by groping her when he was in his cups. He fell and had a serious torsion fracture of his arm, that kept him from golfing and created a permanent though minor disability. His wife basically tries to take separate vacations, relegating him to his 'drinking' vacations. His family members tolerate him but likewise isolate him because of the drinking.

When we go to our court parties, he will always bring tons of wine, keeps filling everybody's glasses, then try to move on to hard liquor. You can see him drifting off into his alcohol coma. He thinks he is funny when he isn't, but wants everybody to humor him. He's a garrulous drunk, no dead air from him. He tries to reach a point where everybody is in some kind of intoxicated brawl, very Irish of him. I am shocked he has survived all of his imbibing for so long.

I know a lot of people like that.

Thats why I think alcohol is far less harmful (physically not behaviorally) than they make it sound. If your liver is intact and likes a good workout there aren't really any other things you need to watch out for. There's also a strange counterbalance with weight, you don't put on any as long a you drink wine or liquor or even lighter beers such as pilsner. It's often the opposite your appetite is curbed for a while.

From the article that Headset linked:
However, the scientists found that both those who never drank alcohol and those who abstained in the 12 months prior to the study and had no previous risk factors did not have a higher rate of death than those who drank low to moderate amounts of alcohol.
So no advantage to light/moderate drinking, but not a threat to longevity either.

It's a surfactant (breaks up fats) and 30 years ago when I was in school it was theorized a small amount helped the circulatory system. Also a very small amount. Like 3oz of a light beer or something and no more, switches on garbage collection in the brain - for more recent research. There is actually a flushing system that usually runs during sleep.

just_passing_through says

There is actually a flushing system that usually runs during sleep.

That explains why a passed out drunk pees his pants.

Low to moderate alcohol consumption is highly correlated with longevity in almost every observational study to date.
Every one.

However, the reason is still not understood as alcohol is essentially a poison - and so... there are more recent studies that take a
different approach and find that all drinking is harmful. And yet...

The view is that drinking in this context is indicative that you lead a healthier life style in general - exercise, have a job,
and have good social connections (which is likely why you are having a glass of wine at a group/family dinner).
Low level wine / beer consumption in a group/meal situation does unequivocally correlate with better life outcome, and
even the studies that state that all alcohol is debilitating do show that the risk for low consumption is very small.

The greatest improvement to reducing alcohol damage is for moderate / heavy drinkers.

Personally, I think that the health benefits from say a glass of wine a night is actually underestimated. It allows one to cope with difficulties, is a social
lubricant that gets social interaction going, etc...

A review of latest JAMA study:
https://peterattiamd.com/alchohol-intake-and-cardiovascular-disease-risk/

Moderate alcohol consumption also reduces the risk of Alzheimer's Disease:

https://www.alzinfo.org/articles/moderate-drinking-reduce-alzheimers-risk/

Want to lower your Alzheimer’s risk? A drink or two a day may help, according to a new report. But the key is moderation. Too much alcohol can damage the brain and lead to other health problems.

Earlier findings by this group and others have suggested that moderate drinking can have benefits for the brain. But this was a largest analysis to date.

“This study is not the final word, but it does provide the most complete picture out there,” said study author Michael A. Collins, Ph.D., of Loyola University Chicago’s Stritch School of Medicine. The researchers looked at data from143 studies from more than 365,000 participants around the world. The findings appeared in the journal Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment.

Given that arteriosclerosis is a known cause of Alzeimer's as well as of heart disease, the same effect may be at play, whatever it is.

Again, a large amount of alcohol is clearly bad for both brain and heart, but small amounts seem to be beneficial.

Reduction of Alzheimer's is one of the standard fake ploy of medical snake oil propagandas. But, I can't remember the rest.

There is a bar drink called 'Brain Hemorrhage', which is probably as honest as the informatics get.

Patrick says

Again, a large amount of alcohol is clearly bad for both brain and heart, but small amounts seem to be beneficial.

I just went through the major medical tests. Nothing. I'm 100% healthy by doctors definition. I drink 3-6 beers a day. Everyday.

Large amount is relative to what is being consumed. 6 beers over 6 hours versus six hard liquor drinks over 2 hours is different on the body. Sipping beer or wine in moderation I don't think is a big deal. If you find yourself in trouble than it is a big deal. Health wise though booze has been in the diet for centuries. It's why I don't drink hard liquor. It's too easy to over consume. Wine and beer it's harder.

It's always amusing when people trot out studies proving that the things they enjoy are actually good for them. I've always considered it just needing some external validation. I don't really believe you're having a beer to increase your longevity. I don't really believe you're masturbating daily to prevent colon cancer. I don't believe you drink five cups of coffee a day to age gracefully. If you were worried about health you'd be eating cottage cheese and broccoli for dinner every night instead of looking up brands of cigarettes with the least tar or whatever.

Just enjoy the stuff you enjoy and don't be too worried on your deathbed about not having had enough beers throughout your life.

A good read is Peter Attia's book Outlive His basic argument is that best practice medicine now is about risk evaluation because there are so many unknowns and RTC studies are so difficult, with more complex diseases, with many causes both environment and genetic, that getting definitive results is near impossible. So, how do you evaluate various studies and determine what studies are good vs bad? It seems as others pointed out there are simply many bad studies from which you can draw the wrong conclusions. The book, though, can be summed up with just one word: exercise.

That seems to be the key to a long life, with diet and what you eat/drink not nearly as important as originally believed.

Of course, his premise is that you want a "quality" long life, so he views weight bearing exercise as critical.

Make up a critical test for the theory in your mind, that would at least have a 95 percent statistical validation. This isn't 'data harvesting', which presumes the truth of usually slanted underlying 'data' without researching the validity of the underlying data. Literally, anything can be 'proven' with data harvesting. Not much different than AI, which is agnostic to data, but can be slanted with programming toward a particular subset of choices.

Testimonials from people who drink? Mostly, they just state that their drinking is 'fine' without consequences (drinking solipsism) and will usually just lie to make their amount 'socially acceptable' even if they are routinely drunk.

Controlled drinking in a population, by making them drink a certain amount every day in a long term longitudinal study? Absurd. The people in the study who don't like to drink will fake that they drank, the alcoholics will get shit faced and claim they stuck to the protocol etc. etc.

Isolating the effects of alcohol in a heterogeneous population suffering from many varying mixed patterns of possible genetic or acquired pathologies? Well, good luck with that one. The allegation of heart health (when alcohol is a known muscle toxin) is absurd on its face.

Alzheimer's reduction? Alzheimer's is seldom a specific diagnosis, but is usually a garbage pail diagnosis of many senile diatheses of many often unspecified etiologies. Again, the problem of adequate controls and longitudinal studies will wind up anecdotal at best.

May the best and most pleasing and commercially successful anecdote mythology win.

Patrick says

I'm pretty sure that the evidence of increased life expectancy with one drink a day is overwhelming, far beyond any doubt.

But I get what you're saying, a lot of research is created simply to please businesses which have influence over science funding.

i have research proving that if everyone sends me money it’ll increase world happiness and lifespan.

joking of course, but all the research and articles paid for by companies looking for conclusions or they won’t fund it. wsj and forbes all full of shit imo, i read too much bullshit there.

Genetics plays a huge role.

There's a lot of bulslhit about salt consumption. About 90% of the population is salt INsensitive. They just piss out the extra sodium, no harm, no fowl and the temporary boost in sodium does bupkiss to the circulation. At most a few points of elevated blood pressure shortly after the high salt consumption, then a few hours later it's flushed.

But 10% of the population is salt sensitive, they have to not only control the sodium intake, but make sure they're eating enough salt.

There was a study saying that most cancer drugs don't work on about 20-25% of the population due to the way those particular body chemistries process the drug.

When you get into sophisticated drugs, there's dozens of pathways, and if just one processes it abnormally, you get atypical results. Sometimes it exacerbates problems.

I was just reading a Substack article which claimed that chemotherapy has only a trivial effect on the life expectancy of cancer patients.

Considering the ongoing atrocities of Rockefeller medicine, and the bizarre allowance of physician to directly profit from the sale of the chemotherapeutic agents, one has to wonder. The rug of legitimacy has really been pulled out from under the medical establishment that formerly was trusted.

AmericanKulak says

But 10% of the population is salt sensitive, they have to not only control the sodium intake, but make sure they're eating enough salt.

As someone with higher BP I've read a bit about this. Avoiding salt is not good overall. You need salt. You gotta get your weight down and move more than anything. I've never touched a salt shaker at a restaurant though. I don't get people that do that. It's highly likely the food is already loaded with salt.

Patrick says

I was just reading a Substack article which claimed that chemotherapy has only a trivial effect on the life expectancy of cancer patients.

You can cook any study to get the results you want. Here if you take difficult to treat cancers only one can make that claim, but it doesn't make it right. It always depends. Fluorouracil creme is topical chemotherapy which pretty much cures most skin cancers, with very tolerable side effects. A lot of breast cancer patients are cured permanently with chemo. It's good to be skeptical but there have been massive advancements for the better in the past decades.

WookieMan says

AmericanKulak says

But 10% of the population is salt sensitive, they have to not only control the sodium intake, but make sure they're eating enough salt.

As someone with higher BP I've read a bit about this. Avoiding salt is not good overall. You need salt. You gotta get your weight down and move more than anything. I've never touched a salt shaker at a restaurant though. I don't get people that do that. It's highly likely the food is already loaded with salt.

Another claim that's mostly false except for select patients, sodium generally has no effects on BP. Milk has been demonized for decades now by pediatricians and general MDs, blaming Iron deficiency on milk intake. There is an effect but the benefits of milk far outweigh it except for a few select patients with other issues. Milk, one of the main building blocks of human nutrition has been on the shitlist for a while, cause you must eat ze bugs to lower ze carbon

WookieMan says

Hard liquor is where the alcoholics go to die. I drink daily, not in excess and just some shitty light beer (sorry beer snobs). Just went through the gauntlet of medical tests. MRI, EEG, CT Scan and blood work. Nothing. Totally healthy for a 40 year old with no concerns besides slightly elevated BP which I've had before I even started drinking.

I'm in my mid 60's and go through complete blood testing annually. Gave up the hard stuff years ago, stick with more expensive light beer (Corona Premier, etc.) along with a couple "hard" beers nightly. Eat right and work out moderately 3 to 4 times a week. Blood work clean as a whistle and the plumbing functions nicely. The hard stuff, along with it's complex sugars and carbs, is the killer, at least in my opinion.

mell says

Another claim that's mostly false except for select patients, sodium generally has no effects on BP.

I'm the anecdotal guy. It does 100%. I feel it and measure my BP daily. Any heavy sodium I get hot flashes and I can feel it. We don't have to agree, but it's real. It kicks in after I eat overly salty food. I could start posting what I ate and my BP and it would be pretty damn conclusive. Maybe I'm a freak I guess?

Also, you trust doctors or the medical field after Covid? I sure as fuck don't. I almost died when I was 20 from those fucking idiots. I got lucky my mom was on top of it as a school teacher. Liver biopsy was clean after the surgery, but I almost had my liver fail on me from a gall bladder. Shitting white stools is strange if you know what I'm talking about.

just_passing_through says

It's a surfactant (breaks up fats) and 30 years ago when I was in school it was theorized a small amount helped the circulatory system. Also a very small amount. Like 3oz of a light beer or something and no more, switches on garbage collection in the brain - for more recent research. There is actually a flushing system that usually runs during sleep.

Also anecdotally it seems to prevent common/seasonal respiratory infections roughly at a pace of 2 glasses of wine (mostly red, sometimes beer or hard spirits) per night

About Kid Rock, every whore has a price

Alcohol is good for you:
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/turns-out-alcohol-good-your-health

WTF is this?

Former President Trump urged his followers to give Anheuser-Busch a 'second chance,' after months of criticism the company has faced in from conservatives.

'The Bud Light ad was a mistake of epic proportions,' Trump wrote on his Truth Social website on Tuesday, referencing a brief partnership the company had with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney that has cost it billions in market value.

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4451760-trump-conservatives-should-give-bud-light-second-chance/

I just posted this in the Trump thread.

The most successful Conservative boycott in our history, and of course the New York Liberal is siding with his big donors and trannies. Trump was on the wrong side of the DeSantis/Disney feud as well. Bob Iger must have said something nice to Trump some time ago......and that is all it takes.

Trump is badly wrong about how much normal people do not want tranny shit crammed down their throats.

But compared to Biden, no contest, not even close.

Patrick says

But compared to Biden, no contest, not even close.

But compared to DeSantis, no contest either.

I can't think of a single issue where Trump is better ideologically or on policy than DeSantis.

What could have been......we could have won AND had a much stronger and competent Conservative in the White House.