Alcohol Bullshit - 2007/03/04 19:14Does it make sense to anybody else with how much medical evidence there is that moderate drinking is good for your health that the government and health professionals are still reluctant to recommend it?
But that's not a reason to start drinking, or to drink too much, the researchers say.
"Since alcohol consumption can be addictive, starting to drink alcohol because of its positive health benefits is not advised," says researcher Martinette Streppel in an American Heart Association news release.
Not a reason to start drinking? That's 4 years of extra life! That's an EXCELLENT reason to start drinking! Who here doesn't want to live 4 years longer than they would otherwise?
And that's only one of the mountain of studies showing increased lifespan from moderate alcohol consumption. February was American Heart Month, and they were constantly telling us that heart disease is now the #1 killer of women.
You'd think somebody would mention the large number of studies showing a decrease in heart disease among moderate alcohol consumers. Depending on the study, the numbers have gone as high as pointing to around a 50% reduction!
Certainly we should discourage over-indulgence. But we should not be advocating abstainance from alcohol when it has these kinds of benefits.
I didn't used to drink, but I've now started an alcohol regime of about 1 to 2 standard drinks a day. I feel good about it. Haven't felt any pull of addiction. The evil of alcohol hasn't turned me into a degenerate booze hound.
It's all just ridiculous. To so many of these people the message of alcohol abstainance is more important than the facts of it's health benefits. There is no situation in which the message should ever be more important than the facts. I can't trust people who think otherwise.
Anyway, if you want some actual truth about alcohol, this is a good site:
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demoncleaner
User Karma: 3
Re:Alcohol Bullshit - 2007/06/13 10:53Well personally I am so sick of hearing doctors and scientists telling us what is and isn't good for you then a week later say the opposite thing. I say do what you like, you know your body more than anyone else, eat and drink what you like in moderation and that's it. There is no definitive specifc thing that applies for every single person, we are all different therefore we need different things.
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Pentomino
User Karma: 12
Re:Alcohol Bullshit - 2007/06/13 19:33Moderation is great for those who are capable of it, but addiction is defined by an inability to moderate. That's why alcoholics can only recover if they go cold turkey, rather than if they appease their drive with a controlled drinking schedule or something.
Some people can't quit or slow down on their own. They need help, if not from God as the 12-steppers insist, then from higher powers that actually exist. For example, their environment, their sober friends, and other recovering addicts that knows all the same tricks and can't be fooled by the typical addict tricks that work on the rest of the world.
People who aren't mentally ill, have a hard time conceiving of mental illness, because we perceive our behavior as under our own control. We're not as much in control as we think we are.
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mindme
User Karma: 44
Re:Alcohol Bullshit - 2007/06/14 03:09demoncleaner wrote: Well personally I am so sick of hearing doctors and scientists telling us what is and isn't good for you then a week later say the opposite thing. I say do what you like, you know your body more than anyone else, eat and drink what you like in moderation and that's it. There is no definitive specifc thing that applies for every single person, we are all different therefore we need different things.
Science is not fixed. As science learns more, the advice changes.
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Resa
User Karma: 3
Re:Alcohol Bullshit - 2007/06/14 14:28Wondering what people think about alcohol consumption during pregnancy? A very dear friend of mine who is somewhat of a oenophile would have about 1/2 a glass a day during her pregnancy. She would provide studies, articles, research to anyone who objected. Her quickest response was something to this effect... Europeans, namely winemakers and vineyard owners, have been drinking wine during their pregnancies for hundreds of years (if not more). Why is it so blasphemous in modern day America?
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CaitSidhe
User Karma: 0
Re:Alcohol Bullshit - 2007/11/07 14:15i actually remember reading somewhere (can't recall where - i believe it was an msn link) that drinking (granted, i believe it was binge drinking, or excessive drinking, mostly) raises the risk of breast cancer.
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TainInfernus
User Karma: 0
Re:Alcohol Bullshit - 2007/11/07 14:43That's probably due to the excessive groping that occurs during excessive drinking Nah, but seriously: I think that alcohol can be good for your health, just don't overdo it, folks. However, I don't think I could keep a regimen of 2 drinks a day, I'm not that big of a drinker.
... I wonder if a health study exists that could convince Penn to start up... oh, wait. He doesn't care about his health that much.
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Pentomino
User Karma: 12
Re:Alcohol Bullshit - 2007/11/08 15:48Science is not fixed. As science learns more, the advice changes.
The advice also changes depending on where the money comes from, and what the study focused on, etc. Also remember how horrendous science journalism usually is. The "half a glass of wine is good for you" story seems to surface every year or so on slow news days, about as often as those "scientists have teleported a particle" and "scientists have sent a signal faster than light" stories.
Remember that there's more to wine than alcohol. The health benefits probably come from tannins and vitamins, and other things that you'd probably get more of with grape juice, or a nice peanut butter and jelly sandwich, neither of which are part of the typical adult's diet.
Similarly, if Guinness beer is indeed "good for you", it's probably despite the alcohol, not because of it.
And back to the topic: neither Penn nor Teller drink. Penn has never had an alcoholic beverage in his life. James Randi doesn't drink either.
If alcohol were a Bullshit topic, I don't think he's going to be on the pro-alcohol side, apart from the libertarian aspect that we tried prohibition and it totally failed. Rather, the show would probably investigate alcohol's place in our society, or our intrinsic drive to seek altered states of consciousness, if indeed one exists. And they'd definitely visit "dry counties" where alcohol is still not allowed. It'd be a pretty good show, and I'd be interested to see the angle they take on it.
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Tuesday
User Karma: 3
Re:Alcohol Bullshit - 2007/11/09 02:01Good scientists are naturally conservative and couch their results in the correct skepticism and probabilities. But both they and the media are deathly afraid of liability lawyers, so you get preposterous bullshit like this. The lawyers are a function of the need to makes sense of eccentric government lawmaking, so it's really the government and the government who are responsible. Either way, it's still not moral for the government to dictate what people can and cannot put in their bodies, or, for that matter, what they say.
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