In a vacuum, zero is best since it's a poison.

But the real world is full of trade offs and confounders. Like the increased socialization with friends & co workers could have health benefits that outweigh the negatives of alcohol. Or that many people who drink nothing are ex-alcoholics.

One important factor is that many alcoholic beverages taste great and are a way of enjoying life. I don't think "zero because that way you'll live longer" is the be-all end-all of arguments. What if the same hypothetical argument was made of sex [1], "don't do it and you'll live longer", would that be a pleasureable way of living a longer life?

[1] which may not be true of humans, but it's not scifi either. Some species, like octopuses if I'm not mistaken, die after breeding (for the male this means "sometime after having sex", for the female it's more complicated).

The folks in so-called "blue zones" that live longer on average than anyone else in the world drink alcohol regularly yet moderately.

https://www.wellandgood.com/alcohol-in-blue-zones/

I read many of these blue zones are places where folks have lost everything and lied about their age in order to get old age benefit earlier. This is certainly true of the Japan and Spain locations

Not only in a vacuum. In some contexts, like people who don’t drink already and still have a healthy social life (like myself), it is very much real world and zero is best.

Considering only the contexts where you have trade offs and use it as public advice is plain wrong.

I wonder what research he was looking at too. There was lot of fuss made over the “French paradox” and their wine consumption, and follow up studies which purported to show that one glass of red wine a day had tremendously positive effects on longevity.

Turns out the researcher behind those studies faked data and got caught up in the replication crisis.

Red wine in particular has a lot of flavonoids, which are particularly healthful, so it's plausible that there are some health benefits from it. The alcohol itself is probably not conferring any health benefits, though. As with most things, it's probably too simplistic to reduce it down to a single variable.

In a bubble that might be true, but life is often more messy.

>Put simply – many of the abstainers were either ex-alcoholics or people with factors that would increase the risk of premature death (that is why probably they stopped drinking).

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/199398#1

> Even so, after taking into account the confounding factors, the researchers found that moderate drinker was still more likely to live longer than the abstainer or heavy drinker.

> I thought it had already been shown that the only healthy amount of alcohol is zero

It has been, but asking people to completely refrain from alcohol is basically a non-starter for a huge part of the population.

Pretty well-known finding. Probably because increased sociality leads to greater longevity, not because alcohol is directly healthy.

I highly suspect zero alcohol is correlated with less health than some alcohol only because when you have health problems you often stop drinking.

I've never really liked taste of alcohol containing drinks bar some light beer or few drops of some vine. Hence I've never drank alone. I would drink and get moderately (sometimes more) drunk at parties that were / are happening quite often. In the beginning being drunk with pals and gals brought me into elevated set of mind and I liked it. Also it was easy way to sex when very young. Pass some years that type of high had worn off and it has became utterly boring. So I just stopped. Sure I would take a symbolic drink under some circumstances (2-3 times a year) but that's about it.

So no, I do not have any underlying mental / health issues. Just do not give a fuck about drinking. It did not impede my social life either. I still meet with friends just as before.

Correlation vs. causation maybe: Moderate drinking often correlates with socializing. Social connections are key for longevity.

Non-drinkers might have reasons not to drink. Like taking medicaments, health issues, etc.