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Studies Claiming Alcohol Is Healthy Are Totally Flawed, Buzzkill Scientists Say
By
David Colon
Published Sep 24, 2016
Modified Sep 24, 2016
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By
David Colon
Published Sep 24, 2016
Modified Sep 24, 2016
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It's always good when science endorses your generally repugnant lifestyle, especially when science is telling you to go ahead and drink because it's not bad for you and might even be good for you. The problem with science, though, is that it's run by a bunch of nerds, and if there's anything we know about nerds, it's that they hate to party, but love "evidence," and "peer review," and sneer at the fact that studies on the health benefits of alcohol are "funded by alcohol companies." So, science nerds are now sounding the alarm that alcohol isn't nearly as healthy as the world has been led to believe. Oh yeah? Well if alcohol doesn't love you, why is it named after beloved family members?
A report in WIRED breaks the bad news for people who've told themselves things like, "I'm actually helping my heart with this jug of Carlo Rossi!" For starters, it turns out that Curtis Ellison, the scientist who first told the world that a glass of red wine per day could make your heart healthier, had been given "unrestricted educational donations" from the booze industry while he studied the link between alcohol and health.
An investigation of Ellison's original red wine and heart health study found that the some of the non-drinking groups he studied were made up of a number of ex-alcoholics and people too sick to drink anyway. Once that factor was corrected, moderate drinkers were still found to be healthier than non-drinkers, but not by as much as the study originally showed. WIRED also suggested that moderate wine drinkers who have a glass with dinner come from a wealthier, more privileged background that usually correlates with better health, to which Ellison told the magazine, “We’re not studying beer or wine specifically, we’re studying people who drink them.” Oh great, NOW you tell us that.
One scientist told WIRED that alcohol is responsible for 20,000 cancer deaths per year in just the United States, but even facts like this wind up confounding cancer education groups like the Susan G. Komen Foundation and the American Cancer Society. Groups like that are left to tell confused, alcohol-loving Americans to merely drink "moderately"—which doesn't really have an exact definition—while also trying to warn them that alcohol is a carcinogen. And in the mean time, science will be looking into just how dangerous alcohol is...in another study paid for in part by alcohol companies.
So fine, liquor isn't a health food. Which is all well and good, but until science can give me a better way to deal with an election year where "virtual reality gazillionaire pays for anti-Clinton shitpost memes" is a thing, I'm sticking with whiskey.
Tagged
booze
party poopers
science
David Colon
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