{"id":13359,"date":"2024-01-03T05:35:51","date_gmt":"2024-01-03T10:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dryatlas.com\/staging\/?p=13359"},"modified":"2024-01-24T21:46:35","modified_gmt":"2024-01-25T02:46:35","slug":"drink-less-live-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dryatlas.com\/staging\/articles\/drink-less-live-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Rethinking Booze’s Health Halo"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n\r\n\r\n

We at Dry Atlas enjoy the occasional alcoholic cocktail, but we can\u2019t ignore the mounting evidence that alcohol is harmful to our health. As you reevaluate your wellness habits this Dry January, you won\u2019t want to miss this particularly interesting <\/span>Washington Post<\/span><\/a><\/span> article.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

It outlines a study that indicates that previous studies on alcohol were \u201csignificantly biased by flaws in study design.\u201d For example, some \u201cfailed to remove \u2018sick quitters\u2019 or former drinkers, many of whom cut down or stopped for health reasons\u201d from the dataset. \u201cThese abstainers are often older people who gave up alcohol because their health was bad,\u201d said the study\u2019s lead author, Tim Stockwell. \u201cBeing able to drink is a sign you are still healthy, not the cause of it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\r\n

How were we once led to believe that drinking ethanol was healthful? A few key factors seem to have been at play:<\/span><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

1. Wishful thinking<\/b><\/p>\r\n

\u201cThis study punctures the hope of many that moderate alcohol use is healthy,\u201d said Robert DuPont, a psychiatrist and substance abuse expert who served as the first director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

The operative word there is \u201chope.\u201d A lot of us would love to believe that something that seems bad for us is in fact somehow magically good for us. Unfortunately, wanting something to be true doesn\u2019t make it true. Many of us, myself included, let our wishful thinking override our intuition for a long time.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

2. Incentives<\/b><\/p>\r\n

Legacy alcohol is big business, and there are a lot of people with a lot to gain from perpetuating booze\u2019s predominance in society.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

As the article notes, \u201cMuch of the research into the health effects of alcohol has been funded by the alcohol industry. One recent report found that 13,500 studies have been directly or indirectly paid for by the industry.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

3. Trusting the data<\/b><\/p>\r\n

I love this tweet and, in particular, its last sentence\u2019s applicability to the myth that a moderate amount of booze is healthful.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

I also love this contrarian <\/span>video<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span>. Towards the end, the creator talks about listening to one\u2019s own observations, which brings to my mind hangovers, nausea, and mental fog. We had so many clues that booze was bad for us!<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Now, back to that Washington Post article. I\u2019ll leave you with one final thought:<\/span><\/p>\r\n

\u201cThe bottom-line message is that in terms of health, less alcohol is better,\u201d said Tim Naimi, who is an author of the study. \u201cOr you could say: Drink less, live more.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

For more from Douglas, follow him on LinkedIn<\/u><\/span><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Dry Atlas is a media company focused on alcohol alternatives. We deliver non-alc insights, news, and recs to over five million people annually. To stay up to date on all things non-alc, subscribe to our weekly newsletter<\/a><\/span>.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We at Dry Atlas enjoy the occasional alcoholic cocktail, but we can\u2019t ignore the mounting evidence that alcohol is harmful to our health. As you reevaluate your wellness habits this Dry January, you won\u2019t want to miss this particularly interesting Washington Post article. It outlines a study that indicates that previous studies on alcohol were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15593,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[229],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wellness"],"yoast_head":"\nRethinking Booze's Health Halo<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Previous studies of alcohol and health were significantly biased by flaws in study design. 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