Yes, small, but non-existent. Depending on which studies you choose to trust, it can be a small benefit to longevity and overall health or a small detriment. Either way, a small impact.
But an impact, supporting the āno safe limitā suggestion by the experts.
There's some debate about the reliability and value of observational studies, but there is most certainly a difference between a controlled, randomized, clinical trial and an observational study.
Ah, weāre at odds here. I meant that looking at data is observational. I think you mean āself-reported dataā. Yes, people lie about their alcohol, food, drug intake because they are often shameful of it!
When my other half is taking a medical history from a new patient, she often doubles the self-reported amounts of alcohol in the notes (in pencil) and refers to liver function blood tests to verify or otherwise. Have you noticed that when a doctor wants to know how much you weigh, they confirm your reported weight by putting you on scales!
Yes, but if many people say they drink 2 drinks a day (moderate drinking according to the CDC) and in truth they drink 4 drinks a day (well over the line into heavy drinking according to the CDC), and you look at those blood tests and say those results apply to moderate drinking (as defined by the CDC) you're coming to inaccurate conclusions. If people who say they are drinking 3-4 drinks a day are actually having 8, then you also have skewed data for what you're labeling as heavy drinking as well. The blood test will tell you what their liver health looks like, but not how many drinks caused it.
But the deleterious effects on the liver ( negative changes in liver function) are what are important, not the absolute amount of alcohol consumed. One pint of strong lager has a bigger negative affect on my liver than it would on a 6 foot 9 inch fat bloke!
I'm not saying that hepatologists are bad at their job, I'm saying that if your job is to take care of people with liver problems you're going to see a lot of people with liver problems and you're going to care about things that damage the liver. You may be blinded to the overall impact of alcohol on your patients' heart health or risk of stroke or cancer or whatever. If the data doesn't support the idea that those who consume alcohol are dying younger than those who don't, then either the data is wrong or insufficient,
Or the factors involved are extremely complex, show individual variation and non-linear. I think this is the case and you canāt be sure until you do the research. Small amounts of alcohol might be fine for me, but terrible for that the 6ā9ā bloke, but we donāt know until we see what alcohol does to us. Thus the safest thing to advise, for the whole population is āthere is no safe limitā.
the damage to the liver is minimal enough to be irrelevant to overall longevity, or while the damage to the liver may be significant alcohol has some beneficial impact on other health conditions that outweighs this negative impact (on the general population - individual risk is of course, individual).
Interestingly, the experts expanded on their research findings by saying, the small benefits of drinking alcohol are obliterated by the deleterious effects of alcohol.
Lots of medications are also toxic, so the fact that alcohol is a "metabolic āpoisonā" doesn't guarantee that it can't be of benefit,
See above. I take medication that have terrible potential side effects, but they are better than the potential effects of my medical condition. My doctor and I have made an informed decision that Iām better off taking the medication, than not. Taking alcohol is a lifestyle choice.
>As the old saying goes, "The difference between poison and medicine is in the dose".
Plutonium? Asbestos? Old sayings often donāt bear close scrutiny
>Even water is toxic if you drink too much too quickly.
Well, itās the
dilution affects of too much water that are bad for your health rather than water
itself. Your electrolyte levels are altered beyond normal life-perpetuation physiological parameters. No amount of alcohol is required for a normal life.
>Lots of things can be bad for your health. Sugar is bad for your health and fructose consumption is also correlated >with fatty liver disease.
You mean over-consumption. We have to consume/convert into, some sugars or we would rapidly die. Alcohol is
not required in any amount for life.
>I'm still not sure that a strict ketogenic diet is necessary for health.
Yes, I agree. Any extreme should be viewed with suspicion - except drinking no alcohol
>Similarly, I really doubt that we have enough information to say that a couple of drinks a day, much less a handful of >drinks a month, is likely to have a measurable, detrimental impact on the average person.
And world-class experts, based on current research, disagree with that. Iād go with peer-reviewed data than āgut instinctā.
(Sorry, I did something weird with the editing there, hence the chevrons)
) to ingest for the gutās healthy ābiomeā, as this balance of bacteria is called.
? Oh yes, all alcohol is the devilās semen, and you all drink too much because youāre feeble-minded, have no discipline and self-medicate to boost your under-developed personalities and make you vaguely interesting to your preferred gender 
Actually, thatās why I do martial arts 
