No matter what the intelligentsia says, beverage type matters. Wine, especially red wine, is different from other forms of EtOH. The net effect is important, even after considering that alcohol metabolism if the same irrespective of beverage type. The type of consumption (with meals vs without) also matters more than can be discerned except when studies directly, where consuming with meals (aka Mediterranean diet style) is less “dangerous” than consuming outside of meals.
Studies have been done accounting for sick quitters and the null or modest benefits of alcohol consumption remain. I think the person matters much more than can be reasonable untangled by clinical research. An overweight T2D patient who likely already has a fatty liver and hypertension is not the same as a lean person with a proper diet and exercise routine. Any analysis with smokers is automatically irrelevant if included. I like the AHA’s position on this. It’s fair and balanced but still gets some things incorrect, mostly due to the bad datasets we have to work with. All that being said, the upper limits proposed by many to identify when risk starts to rise are probably spot on. If you feel impaired, you’ve consumed too much.
Effect size is important and should be quantified in any discussion on this.
If one glass of wine per day statistically reduces life expectancy by 20 minutes, it is not particularly important if one abstains, and it is a preference issue. If it reduced life expectancy by 20 years, it’d be imperative to abstain.
If you are wondering if the recommendations to limit drinking should be more aggressive, you should look at the effect size. If our best data right now is uncertain - that is to say, if we are not even certain about the direction of the effect let alone the magnitude - then the answer to the question is “no, the current evidence does not justify more aggressive recommendations.”
When I was young I lived in Spain, in the province of Alicante. Your suppositions seem simplistic to me as back then every home where I lived made their own wine for home consumption and had a Barrel of it in the house. Normal consumption for a male was a couple of glasses with each meal. Often a Spanish Brandy was taken with early morning coffee. In most households in our village there were three generations living together and the 75 yr olds went out to the countryside with their ravaged arteries with their mule and cart to work the fields every day returning in the evening. I am not a scientist of which there are precious few these days but my experiences then are more valuable to me than tests and papers usually qualified by maybe's and perhapses. Remember how much the scientists knew about Covid? Is Hanson's residual fatigue or the train/ recover system the answer. Both succeed and both have their scientific approvals. Be careful about preaching stuff that to ones own eyes appears contradictory to what happens in real life.
No matter what the intelligentsia says, beverage type matters. Wine, especially red wine, is different from other forms of EtOH. The net effect is important, even after considering that alcohol metabolism if the same irrespective of beverage type. The type of consumption (with meals vs without) also matters more than can be discerned except when studies directly, where consuming with meals (aka Mediterranean diet style) is less “dangerous” than consuming outside of meals.
Studies have been done accounting for sick quitters and the null or modest benefits of alcohol consumption remain. I think the person matters much more than can be reasonable untangled by clinical research. An overweight T2D patient who likely already has a fatty liver and hypertension is not the same as a lean person with a proper diet and exercise routine. Any analysis with smokers is automatically irrelevant if included. I like the AHA’s position on this. It’s fair and balanced but still gets some things incorrect, mostly due to the bad datasets we have to work with. All that being said, the upper limits proposed by many to identify when risk starts to rise are probably spot on. If you feel impaired, you’ve consumed too much.
Effect size is important and should be quantified in any discussion on this.
If one glass of wine per day statistically reduces life expectancy by 20 minutes, it is not particularly important if one abstains, and it is a preference issue. If it reduced life expectancy by 20 years, it’d be imperative to abstain.
If you are wondering if the recommendations to limit drinking should be more aggressive, you should look at the effect size. If our best data right now is uncertain - that is to say, if we are not even certain about the direction of the effect let alone the magnitude - then the answer to the question is “no, the current evidence does not justify more aggressive recommendations.”
Pinto 3 times London Marathon runner liked a glass of wine the night before a race. Forgot to mention that!
When I was young I lived in Spain, in the province of Alicante. Your suppositions seem simplistic to me as back then every home where I lived made their own wine for home consumption and had a Barrel of it in the house. Normal consumption for a male was a couple of glasses with each meal. Often a Spanish Brandy was taken with early morning coffee. In most households in our village there were three generations living together and the 75 yr olds went out to the countryside with their ravaged arteries with their mule and cart to work the fields every day returning in the evening. I am not a scientist of which there are precious few these days but my experiences then are more valuable to me than tests and papers usually qualified by maybe's and perhapses. Remember how much the scientists knew about Covid? Is Hanson's residual fatigue or the train/ recover system the answer. Both succeed and both have their scientific approvals. Be careful about preaching stuff that to ones own eyes appears contradictory to what happens in real life.