Alcohol, how much is too much?

Lately I've been using the 'Cholesterol Medication Studies' as the benchmark by which I judge other studies.

For all of the hype involved with cholesterol medications, it comes down to 200 patient years of treatment to gain ONE patient year of life extension. And that is with a supposed 33% lower risk. So just how much good is a 7% lessening of a colon cancer risk going to do for ME? Versus the social benefits of the release of endorphines brought on by the occasional use of alcohol?

Alcohol, helping people enjoy life for 6,000 years ! At minimal cost.
 
JoeEllison said:
Are all of your posts so insulting, aggressive, and dishonest? Or just the ones about alcohol?
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I'm sorry, I can understand that you might think I'm being insulting if I refer to someone who has 50-60 drinks a week as a drunken slob - that was perhaps a bit strong but was an immediate and honest reaction to your post. If it insults you then I apologise. But aggressive and dishonest? I don't think so.
I wonder if I'm touching a nerve? Do you still drink as much?
 
geni said:
In this case the authority is legit. The NHS and DOH employs large numbers of experts in public health and has access to large datasets. Generaly safe to assume that if they doin't know what they are talking about no one else does either.
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Yes and no. Questioning an assessors underlying assumptions is good science. It's not unknown for even a department within a respected organization to have their own agenda. Remember that, even with practices as dicey as computer modeling, replication of results by an independent lab is a hallmark of good science.
 
patrick767 said:
Minor correction... a shot is 1.5 oz (though many bars now make it only 1 oz) and 1.5 oz of the average liquor (80 proof) is equivalent in alcohol to 12 oz of a 5% abv beer.
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I accept that as the proper amount for good mixing ... but the legal "shot" in TX at that time was 1 1/4 ounce. May have changed since then, but I doubt they would have actually increased it (for some reason).

In TX, it wasn't just a concern for limiting either. It was considered illegal to serve (i.e. sell) less than 1 1/4 ounce also.
 
Wudang said:
And this is the same NHS that runs homeopathic hospitals. But I guess since they're the experts then homeopathy must be okay.
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Nope.

1)they keep trying to close them
2)never been through the normal NHS review procedures.

"I'd define binge drinking as deliberately drinking enough to lose self-control and self-respect"

Not a good defintion at all. Firstly I don't belive there is any known mechanism by which the intention of the Dricker impacts the effect ethonal on the body. Secondly both self control and self respect are way to subjective to be useful.

And this opinion is based on what?

By comparison we know the the DOH has acess to large ammounts of data and experts and no reason to think they would not use that in this case.

The responce of a rational mature adult is either:
1)stay within the limits
2)break the limits and accept the risk admiting that you are doing so.

Denial not so good.
 
Slimething said:
Risk assessment is a tricky thing. There are a few posters who have questioned the endpoint that the NHS is using and that's the real crux of it. They're not always right and it's a very good question to ask. For all we know, they're calculating the risk to a person who is recovering from hepatitis.

I'll stay with my favorite risk assessor, Mark Twain, who wrote:
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Agreed! The problem with so many of these reports is that they report the percentage change in risk and don't make so much of the absolute risk i.e. percentage of population likely to develop the particular disease. So you may have a large percentage change in a risk, which is small in absolute magnitude. So you need to concentrate on risks based on family history and those risks, which are large for your particular lifestyle.
 
The death rate is still ONE.

What we are interested in is the life span.

So, do teetotalers life any longer? Where is the study?

How much longer do cholesterol lowerers live? I would think that with all of the money spent on studies, the NIH would be able to tell us. Why don't they? Because it doesn't make any improvement on an individual basis.

All of these kinds of studies only make improvements on a population-based scale. Hey, if the NHS can delay having to pay for some care by a few weeks, but it costs you all of your fun, the NHS comes out ahead. For free. Think of the interest they gain on the funds held in an account, for an extra few weeks. Why, it's probably enough to pay for all of the homeopathic drugs they give out!
 
wilks said:
I'm sorry, I can understand that you might think I'm being insulting if I refer to someone who has 50-60 drinks a week as a drunken slob - that was perhaps a bit strong but was an immediate and honest reaction to your post. If it insults you then I apologise. But aggressive and dishonest? I don't think so.
I wonder if I'm touching a nerve? Do you still drink as much?
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Nope. I was in the Marines, though... and if you think the Marines are nothing more than "drunken slobs", then you are pretty easy to dismiss, I think.

The proper question you should have asked was "How many drinks on each day to add up to 50-60?" Drinking 4-5 beers doesn't make you a drunken slob, if that's what you're used to. It hardly even gives you a buzz. A 12-pack on Friday and Saturday, spread over 8-10 hours, also doesn't qualify most people as "drunken slobs". If I were binge drinking 25-30 beers two nights a week, I'd have been pretty sloppy. Plus, I could and did stop any time I wanted to. When my drinking creeped above 60 a week, I would cut back to nothing for a few weeks, up to a month.

Just claiming that everyone who drinks is an alcoholic, or even a "drunken slob", is foolish and illogical. Just because you have bad experience, it doesn't mean everyone's experience matches yours.
 
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geni said:
Nope.

1)they keep trying to close them
2)never been through the normal NHS review procedures.

"I'd define binge drinking as deliberately drinking enough to lose self-control and self-respect"

Not a good defintion at all. Firstly I don't belive there is any known mechanism by which the intention of the Dricker impacts the effect ethonal on the body. Secondly both self control and self respect are way to subjective to be useful.

And this opinion is based on what?

By comparison we know the the DOH has acess to large ammounts of data and experts and no reason to think they would not use that in this case.

The responce of a rational mature adult is either:
1)stay within the limits
2)break the limits and accept the risk admiting that you are doing so.

Denial not so good.
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Why does her opinion invalidate her analysis of the apparent weakness of the derivation of "binge drinking"?

Let's see - the NHS keeps trying to close the homeopathic hospitals run by the NHS? How do you know this definition of "binge drinking" didn't come from the same office that keeps open the homeopathic hospitals?

I average a can of cider every few days so I;m not in denial. I just like facts. If there is a reason for what appears to be a randomly chosen operational defn lets hear it.
 
Wudang said:
Why does her opinion invalidate her analysis of the apparent weakness of the derivation of "binge drinking"?
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Because she doesn't base it on any data at all.

Let's see - the NHS keeps trying to close the homeopathic hospitals run by the NHS? How do you know this definition of "binge drinking" didn't come from the same office that keeps open the homeopathic hospitals?
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Because homeopathic mob are pretty isolated and limit their publications to some rather odd customer satatifaction surveys.

I average a can of cider every few days so I;m not in denial.
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You are. Cider should not be drunk from cans.

I just like facts. If there is a reason for what appears to be a randomly chosen operational defn lets hear it.
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Which one? The 8 or more or more than 8 defintion?
 
geni said:
Because she doesn't base it on any data at all.
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Eaxctly. Because no data is given for why that definition of binge drinking is valid. I believe that the weekly limits were thrashed out by a panel of experts and took a lot of factors into consideration and are a safe compromise (maybe too safe) but let's assume that these weekly limits are good. Where does the assumption that dividing that by 7 and multiplying by 2 as a bad value come from? If the initial panel were experts is it worth assuming that they picked a weekly rather than monthly or daily value for a reason?
Because homeopathic mob are pretty isolated and limit their publications to some rather odd customer satatifaction surveys.
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Evidence?
You are. Cider should not be drunk from cans.
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I have the occasional glass. I don't drink it from the can. Another ad-hom like your ad-hom attack on the statistician that since you don't like her opinions her arguments can't be valid.

Which one? The 8 or more or more than 8 defintion?
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Which one has evidence?
 
Wudang said:
BTW - if anyone can find a reference for the NHS setting 8 units in any one day as binge drinking rather than just adopting the ONS defn of "heavy drinking" I'd be interested.
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Actualy first you would have to provide evidence that the NHS has settled on 8 units. They appear to be haveing a lot of fun bounceing between 8 and 9 trying to use wordings that make it hard to spot.
 
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