My dad lived a healthy lifestyle. Worked out everyday except the weekends; even competed in amateur competitions. He followed all the scientist’s advice and ate what was healthy and stayed away from what wasn’t. Still got Stage 4 cancer and died before his 69th birthday.
Point is: we’re still going to die, no matter how healthy we are. If you want to drink, do it responsibly (don’t drive, or text). Enjoy as much of this shitty life as you can, while you can.
Same with people who smoke or eat bacon every day and live past 100. It’s an odd crapshoot.
I’ve seen it said that your date of death (if natural) is somewhat set in stone by genetics, but the condition you’ll spend your final years in will be the result of your lifestyle instead. So living to excess will fuck you up in your later years but won’t necessarily kill you any sooner.
Oh no. My grandmother is 92 and my grandfather is 93 and my great grandfather passed at 102.
I don’t know if I want to live that far. I better start drinkin’.
I think the point of the comment you replied to was that you will live until said ages potentially, but the quality of life in the last decade or so will be very poor. Growing up in a society where men drink a lot more than women (at least in my grand parents generation) I can tell you that you will likely also die from alcohol abuse sooner (generally heart attack or diabetes, but that last one also has genetic accelerants), but it is true that the last few years are not pretty.
Edit: when abusing alcohol heavily.
Getting cancer is largely based on genetics.
certain cancers like breast or thyroid and certain stomach are genetic.
For everything else age is a huge factor. It’s usually in late 60s a person gets more chances of cancer as your cells age and create mutations.
Certain life styles such as HPV are on the rise because of …well basically free loving in the 70s/80s prior to the vaccine. This is why you’re suddenly seeing a huge spike in throat cancer right now in 60 yr olds. Especially men and a lot of women are getting cervical cancer right now as gardisil was not around when they were most sexually active.
And then you have certain hernias as you age are likely to happen that can lead to stomach cancer as your cells will make more mistakes to try to heal these hernias.
Basically your cells heal. And each time they heal they increase in chances of mutation of becoming cancer. This becomes even more so as you age.
Waiting for all the COVID cancers, wildfire smoke cancers, etc. in 60 years
Ya everything is probability and risk factors, nothing is certain. Life is for living, might as well have a good time (within reason/with moderation of course).
Cancer is a bitch because even if we cured everything but cancer…we would still get cancer eventually. Cancer comes for even the immortal. Without that cure, we all would eventually get Cancer.
What if moderate drinking keeps my stress levels lower, is it healthier then?
Supposedly most of the benefit alcohol brings is in fact the idea that it helps people spend more time socializing, which has enormous benefits. A little poison for a lot of community can be a good trade.
Long term you’re probably more stressed. It helps in the moment, but you’ll be more stressed and anxious when you’re not drinking, plus it raises your blood pressure, so if you’re worried about a stress induced cardiovascular event, alcoholism probably making it worse.
Alcohol is a carcinogen. No two ways about it. There aren’t really “safe” levels for a toxin; it’s not a matter of what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, it’ll gradually and insidiously weaken you by ways of fatty liver disease and worse.
Sunlight is also a carcinogen, but that doesn’t mean you always stay indoors.
No, of course not. You should apply sunscreen when outdoors
There’s no “safe” level of sunlight, even if you wear sunscreen.
That is a highly myopic, frankly stupid, opinion that isn’t even yours - you’re just repeating things that you heard.
The deleterious health effects from not getting sun exposure vastly outweigh the potential DNA damage from sun exposure.
I take plenty of vitamin D every day
What deleterious health effects from not getting sun exposure?
Vitamin D deficiency. Rickets. Osteopathic problems. Seasonal Affective Disorder. Weight gain. Etc.
https://distance.physiology.med.ufl.edu/what-are-the-effects-of-not-getting-enough-sunlight/
They make vitamin D pills
You can get the RDA of vitamin D from a healthy diet, without need for sunlight.
Weight gain is caused by diet and lack of exercise, not lack of sunlight.
SAD can be treated with non-carcinogenic lamps.
10 minutes of sun per day is typically less likely to give you cancer than 0 minutes. Vitamin D (and other compounds involved in the synthesis from cholesterol that you won’t get in supplements) upregulate DNA repair polymerases that protect against carcinogens. Of course after a few minutes the costs of UV exposure outweight this benefit though.
There aren’t really “safe” levels for a toxin
There is, actually. Everything is toxic if you take enough of it. The only difference between what is called “toxic” and is not called “toxic” is that what is called “toxic” has a very low threshold before it is toxic to us.
Now I’m not here to defend alcohol, but that statement is simply wrong.
That is, in fact, not correct. Yes, there are things that have thresholds where they are harmless (e.g. salt), but alcohol isn’t one of them. Alcohol, like many other toxic substances, does not have a threshold below, which it is harmless.
The WHO says the damage starts from the first drop: https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health
Everything has a threshold from a toxicology point of view.
Absolutely. Every. Single. Substance.
I haven’t read the article you linked, but it does not matter, as a drop is not an indivisible unit of alcohol. It could already be above the threshold.
If your body accidentally absorbs a single molecule of ethanol, you’ll be just fine.
Good to know that you, random keyboard scientist, know so much more about this topic than the WHO. So much in fact that you don’t even have to check the source.
Let’s form a religion around your wisdom. All hail iglou!
Alright, I read your article. All it says it that there is no study determining a threshold. That’s your source?
Meanwhile, here is the ECHA page for ethanol, the alcohol most present in alcoholic beverages and the only one “safe” for consumption. You will there find various toxicity thresholds established by studies, although none on humans. But unless you are willing to argue that humans don’t have thresholds for alcohol while mice, rats and monkeys do, that doesn’t make a difference to the point.
No need to form a religion, it’s just documented science.
Rather than hailing me, you could learn a bit about toxicology. Because the fact that everything has a threshold is pretty basic.
That was an absolute shit paper. Their methodolgy was horrible and their statistics were even worse. It’s seriously so flawed that I gave myself an migraine from eyerolling so hard.
So many people defending alcohol, it shows the current alcoholism problem.
You get told that something useless (yes alcohol is useless, if you don’t agree you might already have a problem), that causes a LOT of deaths, violence and sickness, is absolutely not healthy (I struggle understanding how people were still believing that shit), and your reaction is to try to argue against it?
Then people panic at the mention of sweeteners because “maybe they’re dangerous”, but for alcohol which is one of the biggest sources of avoidable deaths, nah, it’s probably fine, no matter what science says.
Addiction is a sad thing.
Addiction is a sad thing.
yeah god forbid someone find a bit of pleasure in the smouldering shitscape.
I don’t think the person you’re replying to is talking about somebody having a few drinks on a weekend to take the edge off and relax. They’re talking about addiction, which is not pleasurable.
Its nerve poison, never been healthy never will be. But its fun, relaxing and great in social settings to get even the most introverted to open up and enjoy socializing.
Yes, this is what one study said. While biologically-speaking even a single drop of alcohol is bad for your body, the return effect from it is socialization, fun (only in moderation). If there were no positive effects it wouldn’t be used. In moderation it would be interesting to see the effects positive emotions have on the wellbeing.
However, that being said it is still the worst drug and it is easily abused. I work as a bartender at a hotspot in my city. The degeneration of the mind many people go through is utterly disgusting. I don’t mind because they’re not me though. But I do mind cleaning up after them in the toilets, or when they proceed to be shitty to those around them… or worse.
It goes the same as for any legal drug: Only use it when you consciously want to. Know when to stop. Drink a glass of water inbetween. And for the love of god don’t make it an excuse to be an ass. If you lose yourself in it you’re losing more than you get. Stopping to use any drug is a good thing.
If there is any “health” benefit I could see the stress relief from a couple drinks doing less damage to your body than being in constant heavy stress. Pure speculation tho.
If we only ever did what was healthy we’d all have died of boredom.
