Two Standard Alcoholic Drinks a Day No Longer Safe, Health Officials Say (theguardian.com) 170
It is no longer safe to have two standard drinks a day, Australian health officials have warned. From a report: Released just in time for Christmas, the National Health and Medical Research Council on Monday published a draft report which updated Australia's alcohol guidelines for the first time since 2009. The new guidelines warn that adults should have "no more than 10 standard drinks per week" to reduce the health risks from alcohol, or roughly 1.4 drinks a day. The maximum an adult should have on a single day is four standard drinks. The NHMRC's 2009 guidelines stated that "no more than two standard drinks" on any day -- or 14 a week -- reduced the lifetime risk of harm from alcohol. But a review of evidence showed the lifetime risk of dying from alcohol-related disease or injury remained below 1 in 100 if alcohol consumption stayed below 10 per week.
What ever (Score:5, Insightful)
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Indeed. Instead of dying from a heart attack, you'll die of liver failure. It's nice to have choices!
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Frankly I'd rather a slower Liver demise.
The problem with heart attacks, is that even if they fail to knock you off, they might cause very goddamn serious brain damage. My favorite musician of all time is Tim Smith from the Cardiacs. This is a guy that took a Frank Zappa like virtuosity and applied it to punk and brit pop, in the 80s and created a predecessor to Mr Bungle, Radiohead, Blur, and Napalm Death, and yes if that sounds like a wierdly diverse set of bands, thats how wild this dudes stuff was. Just
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Who's Steven Hawkins? Is he any relation to Stephen Hawking [wikipedia.org]?
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If you're going to die from liver failure from a single shot, your liver was already fucked up - and the only person to blame for that is you.
Re: What ever (Score:2)
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Obligatory Fry [imgflip.com].
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Oh, the Three Stooges Syndrome?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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The take-away from this article is to make sure you have some very non-standard drinks to avoid this. Be creative... boring drinks kill! Drink a different craft beer each day. One day drink a boot, another a yard. Avoid standard glassware too!
Meanwhile (Score:2)
Marijuana is still illegal at the federal level and has killed exactly no one, ever.
Re:Meanwhile (Score:4, Informative)
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There's literally *no* evidence that THC can cause respiratory failure at any dose it's possible to inhale. The fact that they can't explain why she died doesn't mean it was THC. Perhaps it was one of the deadly vitamin-e oil liquids, or some other contaminant they didn't test for.
As for stoned drivers killing people. So do tired drivers and texting drivers, and, well, drivers. Cars are dangerous and people make mistakes. Does cannabis impair driving ability? Probably. Does it impair people (generall
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Do a shot and relax. Maybe your stress level will go down, and you won't have a heart attack from always being stressed out.
That's true, but it was already taken into account in the study. Moderate alcohol consumption can reduce stress and stress related modes of death, including heart attack, but even moderate alcohol consumption increases the risk of cancer. What the researchers found was that the "sweet spot" is around 1.4 drinks a day, and this seems to maximize your life expectancy.
Phew, it's still safe in the USA (Score:3)
Come join the party
Actual Guidelines (Score:5, Informative)
Seems pretty well put together.
Body weight? (Score:2)
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They'll tell you that being 225lb is already unhealthy, unless you happen to be at least 6'9" tall (205cm)...
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Eating grapes would work just as well.
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There's also tolerance. Several years ago, one of the car magazines laid out a traffic-cone course in a parking lot, and under police supervision, had their staffers drink and drive, having their BAC measured before each run. You could definitely tell who the alcoholics on staff were--at .10 (the legal threshold back then) they were still able to navigate the course, if sloppily. The non-drinkers at .10 were fall-out-of-the-car hammered.
What this points to is the need for a more generalized test of impairme
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Body weight dilutes the alcohol effect. However, the liver is the same for normal or fat people, and that's what gets damaged.
Worry Less (Score:5, Insightful)
For the love of Pete... worry less. If you want to have a drink, have a drink. If you want to have two drinks, have two drinks, but maybe stop there.
Moderation, folks... conventional wisdom says that moderation is good, and excess is not, and that is good advice. That goes for all manner of things.
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For the love of Pete... worry less. If you want to have a drink, have a drink. If you want to have two drinks, have two drinks, but maybe stop there.
So you're agreeing with the article while at the same time complaining about it?
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A beer with dinner every night is not an "issue". Also, it's cultural for those in the UK to do so, and drink even more.
What I could never do is go out to lunch and have a beer, as they often do in the UK pubs. Ugh, that's the worst. I did it once in my life with some coworkers, years and years ago. Never did it again. I don't like drinking in the daytime.
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Also, it's cultural for those in the UK to do so
Not really. Most of my friends go weeks without alcohol, without being teetotal and without being alcoholics. It's just an optional part of their lives.
A few are 'glass of wine' every night, a couple are 'beer at lunch, dinner and through the evening' and even when I was younger, the general balance was 'drink at weekends' with none during the week.
The UK does have a drinking culture, and a binge drinking culture, but it's not 'cultural' to drink every night.
Well crap (Score:5, Funny)
its good, then its bad, then its good, then its... (Score:3, Insightful)
Eggs are good, then eggs are bad, then eggs are good again, then eggs are bad....
Fat is good, then fat is bad, then fat is good again, then fat is bad....
Sugar is good, then sugar is bad, oh... we meant the good sugars, not the bad sugars!
Aspirin is good, then aspirin is bad, then aspirin is good, then aspirin is bad....
Its never-ending.
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You know, most traffic accidents occur within 5 miles of home, and at under 30 mph. So, to be safe, get out of town and drive like hell!
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Go look up the John Oliver YouTube video (Score:3)
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Really? Point to me where the government previously has published guidelines that alcohol consumption is good for you. Bonus round: Point to me where the government has previous published guidelines lower than this and has raised them subsequently.
I think you may have a case of observer bias. ... Or you've had too much to drink.
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No, they didn't get it right this time. The absolutely best alcohol consumption for your body is very, very close to none. Alcohol is not good for living organisms; that's why hand sanitizer is made of alcohol, for example. It kills things dead. Obviously a beer or two won't kill a human but it's still not good for you.
However, if they went out and made a blanket ban on alcohol we've ... already seen what happens. So they lower the advised limits every few years, little by little, so that people voluntarily
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Isn't hand sanitizer generally made from the rubbing alcohol variety, and not the drinking alcohol?
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Are we to believe that THIS time they finally got the science right, instead of the time before that when we were led to believe that THAT time they finally got the science right, or the time before that when THAT time they finally got the science right?
There is no safe dose of alcohol, meaning that it only has harmful effects on your physiology. 1 drink may be minor, but there is still really no benefit - other than possibly relaxing you, which can have benefits. But you should go in knowing that physiologically, there is no healthy dose of alcohol.
Eggs are good, then eggs are bad, then eggs are good again, then eggs are bad....
Show me the science that says they are bad. They have always been good. Learn reality not what is reported. Yes, they have cholesterol in them - which does not translate to blood cholesterol. Cholesterol
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It's a process.
Seems like a marketing process.
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This process seems about as accurate as flipping a coin. I'll stick with asking the magic 8 ball if something is unhealthy.
You don't need alcohol to have a good time? (Score:5, Funny)
Well you don't need running shoes to run a marathon, but it fuckin' helps.
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Are you actually having a good time, if the emotion generated by a chemical?
Re:You don't need alcohol to have a good time? (Score:5, Informative)
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Are you actually having a good time, if the emotion generated by a chemical?
My stomach says yes. Of course a delicious meal doesn't fix a shitty situation any more than a bottle of vodka does but it can be a real highlight of my day.
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Well you don't need running shoes to run a marathon, but it helps fuckin'.
fixed that for you.
Beyond caring (Score:3)
Oblg. Only 1 drink a day (Score:2)
/Oblg. "My Doctor said only 1 glass of alcohol per day."
"I think "I can live with that. [funny-jokes.com]"
Probably the Sugars (Score:2)
"standard drink" is a silly measure. Beer is metabolically very different than a reisling than a mixed drink than a shot of straight whisky.
What we do know is that's cancer thrives on sugars and most people drink sugar with their alcohol. So does cardiovascular disease.
If their dataset is large enough it would be useful to subselect the cohort in ketosis drinking straight shots. I wouldn't recommended the behavior but I'd strongly bet that the total morbidity is reduced.
Be kind to your liver, kids - mini
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Beer is metabolically very different than a reisling than a mixed drink than a shot of straight whisky.
You'd think so, but you'd also be 100% wrong. Drinking a can of beer and a shot of whiskey will raise your BAC the same amount.
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The word "safe" is a totally loaded one for things like this. What do you consider an acceptable risk? Is a .1% increase in a risk that has a 1/1,000 chance of occurring too much? How about a 100% increase( rendering it a 1/500 chance), or do you need a 1,000% increase before it becomes "unsafe."
However, there is most certainly some dosage of any chemical at which no statistically significant impacts can be observed. For example, I'm quite certain there would be no verifiable impacts with a study comparing
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well maybe, but this report's own data says that for men a drink a day *reduces* risk by about 5% ... that sounds like a safe range relative to not drinking at all.
Just do it NOW. (Score:2)
Based on the IHME studies (Score:2)
I ran into two of the people working on this, at a party of course.
Correlation is not causation.
Basically, don't binge drink and stop drinking when you're drunk.
In the good old days: (Score:2)
In the good old days, 2 drinks was perfectly healthy. Obviously the laws of the universe changed so that now only 1.4 drinks are healthy.
All that experimental physics and astronomy research money showing the fine structure constant is pretty much fixed over the life of the universe was wasted. They could have just read this study and known that the laws of the universe change on an amazingly short time scale..
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It's still perfectly healthy as it's just a minuscule risk increase. This all neglects that the risk is worth it for the benefits.
Only 1.4 drinks a day? (Score:2)
The thought of only having 1.4 drinks a day makes me seriously ask, "Who wants to live forever!?"
Sheesh, people! You're gonna die. Get over it. Now, have some fun on the way out and enjoy yourselves.
"no longer" vs "was never" (Score:2)
Somehow I doubt the research showed that the health effects have changed, but rather our understanding of the health effects has changed.
Oh, and probably the change in understand was pretty small.
2??? 2 drinks? (Score:2)
"Two Standard Alcoholic Drinks a Day No Longer Safe, Health Officials Say"
Shit, it takes me at least 4 or 5 drinks backed up with edibles to feel safe nowadays.
That's not what they said (Score:2)
"Two Standard Alcoholic Drinks a Day No Longer Safe, Health Officials Say"
No. Two drinks is no longer considered safe. That headline says that alcohol has changed. What changed is the official position about it.
Re:How did they calculate this? (Score:5, Informative)
they actually are, standard 12 oz can of beer has same alcohol as standard 1.5 ounce shot of 80 proof.
https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/what... [nih.gov]
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It's definitely comparable if you reduce down to grams. But I personally find the whole thinking in terms of a "standard drink" confusing, especially if I were to think about it while drinking.
It wouldn't be so bad if the world could agree on what a standard drink is. Fun fact, in Canada it's about 13.6 grams or pure alcohol (as opposed to 14 in the US). Now here in Canada an average beer is either 341ml (bottle) or 355ml(can) @ 5% alcohol by volume. But you can also buy beer as "tall boys", which are n
Re: How did they calculate this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Itâ(TM)s a heuristic for approximating around a mean. This is often done to communicate complex information to a wide audience that may better understand an imprecise but readily accessible quantity than a scientifically precise one that will satisfy pedantic aspie nerds with raging cases OCD, but completely alienate 90% of the population.
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"...heuristic for approximating around a mean. This is often done to communicate complex information to a wide audience that may better understand an imprecise but readily accessible quantity than a scientifically precise ..."
So what you mean is, that 50% of us have an IQ of under 100 and we evidently must be patronized.
Re: How did they calculate this? (Score:2)
Oh no, I believe in being patronizing and condescending to 100% of the population at all times.
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The problem is that this simplification leads to poor decisions. Guy a local brewery says "Oh I've been here 2 hours and had 3 beers, I'll be fine to drive" Those 3 beers are 12% imperial stouts.
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In my country if you get in the car to drive after 3 beers you are already over the limit. Even if it's not some extra alcoholic specialty brew.
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In my country it's a function of alcohol in the blood not how much you consumed.
So if I had 3 Coors in 3 hours I'm probably fine to drive or very close to being under the limit. If I had 1 14% imperial stout I am way over the limit to drive for about 2 hours.
The problem is people are trying to do this simplistic math of 1 drink per hour rather than understanding the ABV and volume consumed is often not one standard drink.
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Well, in mine it's .05% (if I remember the magnitude correctly), but that pretty much hits 2 drinks. Any more than that and you almost certainly will blow over the limit if you get pulled over.
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I'm sorry boss, I had a beer at 5pm on sunday and I can't come in to work until after 5pm today. I can't drive until it's been a day.
It's a fun troll though. Reminds me of zero tolerance programs. They worked so well when I was in school!
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I'm loving this, please continue. What if we adjust the rules to just be standard 24 hour days. So if you drink at 11:59pm you are safe to drive at 12:01am.
This don't drive on the day you drink has changed my life. It also has huge challenges. I can't use mouth wash anymore or I can't drive. This whole thing is an adventure!
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I think it's going to be safest if you step away from any form of machinery. You don't appear competent to use it safely even when sober.
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Not only that, but it completely ignores the extra fluid intake from drinking beer vs spirits. If you drink 3 beer over the course of a night you have consumed 1.8 g of alcohol and a liter or water. If you were to drink 4.5 ounces of spirits (40%) you would drink 1.8 g of alcohol but you would only drink 2.7 ounces, or 80 ml of water. The extra water helps your body process the alcohol. Not only that, it makes it a lot harder to overdose when you are drinking 5% vs. 40% (although it's still very possible).
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Not really regarding the extra fluid. You certainly may feel better in the morning after drinking ten beers than taking ten shots and nothing else, and chronic dehydration isn't terribly good for you, but your risk of alcohol-related disease is primarily related to how well your liver metabolizes it, which is related to how much enzyme storage and production you have.
The rate of consumption is important. "Standard drink" normally also assumes "standard drinking". In other words, if you have a couple beers
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> If you drink 3 beer over the course of a night you have consumed 1.8 g of alcohol and a liter or water.
Are you drinking American beer here? One liter of beer has more like 50 grams of alcohol.
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The recommendation looks like it's for the mean (probably Caucasian) male. The official recommendations for women are lower, and quite possibly this study also looked at men and women separately.
Most governments don't make separate recommendations by ethnicity (because holy shit) but frequencies of alcohol-related gene variants are markedly different in different ethnicities, so YMMV.
The concept of a standard drink is useful because it covers the majority of situations. Most people can figure out that if th
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Yeah, whenever I feel fancy I get one 10%+ beer, and usually my pocket hurts more than my body after drinking those.
Oh, I get it.... because you are a marsupial...
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Body weight is pretty obvious, most people know theirs, and the pharmokinetics of ethanol is pretty well known. The implications of different genetics range from the commonly appreciated (e.g. ALDH2 deficiency in Asians) to less appreciated possibilities (e.g. https://med.stanford.edu/news/... [stanford.edu]).
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---
I never met a pedant cow,
At least when I’ve been sober;
And if I meet one when I’m plowed,
I’ll tip the damned thing over!
- Dickinson & Thoreau
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It wouldn't be so bad if the world could agree on what a standard drink is. Fun fact, in Canada it's about 13.6 grams or pure alcohol (as opposed to 14 in the US).
That's not really relevant as I don't see Canadian health advice or read the warning labels on Canadian bottles.
The reality is what *you* have been told is a standard drink, is precisely that standard drink.
Having a 350mL can of beer with 5% alcohol in Germany doesn't at all confuse me as I know a 350mL 5% can in Australia is 1.4 standard drinks, and I know what the Australian government recommends in terms of consumption of standard drinks. Rounding up or down is something that should be reserved for the a
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Fun fact, in Canada it's about 13.6 grams or pure alcohol (as opposed to 14 in the US).
Hey, they're getting a benefit in Canada! Isn't everything there discounted by 30% or so?
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with fewer calories... though I think distilled spirits are harder on your system than fermented ones like wine.
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Ethanol = Ethanol = Ethanol.
Pretty much all alcohol comes from yeast fermenting some sort of sugar source....
For beer, usually malted barley is the source (some beers also use rice).
For wine...grapes or course.
For liquor...well, you just generally make a "beer" to start with using barley, or potatoes, or corn, or....anything that you can convert to sugar for yeast to digest and give off the ethanol by-product.
W
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they actually are, standard 12 oz can of beer has same alcohol as standard 1.5 ounce shot of 80 proof.
This, however, is an Australian study - ever see the size of a can of Fosters?
ObFostersComment (Score:3)
More seriously, an Australian standard drink contains about 10 grams of alcohol [alcoholthinkagain.com.au]. In most Australian states, the standard serve of beer in a pub is 285ml (roughly 9.6 oz, so smaller than an American beer glass). 285ml of a typical lager (4.8% ABV) will have about 10.7 grams of alcohol. So, to a rough but good enough approximation, 1 standard drink = 1 glass of beer ("pot" if you're in Victoria, "middy" in NSW).
If you're
Re:health officials? (Score:4, Interesting)
these are the same bozos that still can't appendicitis right and can't even agree on what we're supposed to eat three times a day?
Here's a suggestion: try to got your basic job right like how to tell common abdominal conditions apart that you've known about for 150 years before getting up in people's business, you fools.
Listening to doctors sometimes is like taking fire prevention advice from a pyromaniac. What's his motivation?
I absolutely agree. Many things are well understood and agreed on, and have been for a long time. Other things... not so much. The parent is absolutely right about nutrition, for instance. Almost all of the official West is still chanting "avoid red meat, fat, cholesterol... eat healthy whole grains and vegetable oils". All of which is guaranteed to make you sick, and make certain people very rich.
If anyone is genuinely interested in the very important question of whether alcohol is good or bad for you, and in what quantities, read "The Good News about Booze" by Tony Edwards. In spite of the jokey title, you'll find it documented up the wazoo with references to hundreds of scientific studies. Bottom line: up to about half a bottle of wine per day, every day, will do you more good than harm - and the effect is unmistakeable in the studies, although - as usual - the researchers often fuge the conclusion towards what they would like it to be. Oh, and it seems that alcohol does not count as calories for metabolism. Experiment suggests that drinking a reasonable amount does not make you fat. (Yes, I know that alcohol contains lots of energy - but so do coal, petrol and uranium and none of them make you fat if you eat them).
Edwards concludes that, if red wine were a medicine, it would have to be ranked as far more effective than any other against a whole range of diseases.
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Crap I'm over my lifetime limit already! (Score:2)
does this apply retroactively? Seems kinda unfair to punish everyone when they didn't know
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I'd get depression and anxiety due to a lack of chocolate :(