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Re:Alcohol Researcher Says Alcohol-Industry Lobbyists Are At... by mvdwoord on Monday August 12, 2024 @04:16AM (#41222277)
Also comes across as a relatively useless metric. Even if right, which they likely are as far as I'm concerned, the statement says nothing about how much it deteriorates health (as opposed to improving) and besides that, for most people optimized health is hardly the goal of life.

To what degree can we even measure second or nth order effects of human behavior? This just seems like debating a perfectly spherical cow.

Re:Alcohol Researcher Says Alcohol-Industry Lobbyists Are At... by sseagull on Monday August 12, 2024 @06:56AM (#41223096)
I think there’s some context around this. It used to be every once in a while there would be a study or news story about how moderate drinking would actually improve health (“Drinking may be good for you!”).

That has largely been debunked, though.

Re:Alcohol Researcher Says Alcohol-Industry Lobbyists Are At... by keiferski on Monday August 12, 2024 @07:56AM (#41223437)
But do these studies incorporate the context and social effects of having an occasional drink, or just the alcohol itself? I’m guessing the latter.

It wouldn’t be surprising if an occasional glass of wine with friends leads to less stress and ultimately better health outcomes vs. avoiding the social occasion entirely.

Re:Alcohol Researcher Says Alcohol-Industry Lobbyists Are At... by mvdwoord on Monday August 12, 2024 @10:25AM (#41224753)
Yeah, that's my line of thinking as well. All these isolated metrics on health are only useful to a degree imho.