No such thing as a safe level of drinking

[Cyclone]

 

Ooh a conspiracy theory. What are their other motives then? Do you have any evidence of this?

 

They took nearly 3 years reviewing the evidence before making their recommendations.

It's hardly a conspiracy theory to suggest that it's a public health policy and that there is no scientific evidence that somehow spits out a number of 14 units.

 

---------- Post added 11-01-2016 at 08:08 ----------

 

A lot of the summary is demonstrably untrue tbh...

 

You are safest not to drink regularly more than 14 units per week, to keep health

risks from drinking alcohol to a low level.

Safest? No. Safer than drinking 15, 16, 28, 56, yes. Safer than drinking 10, 5, probably not. So clearly not safest.

It then goes on to give advice without quantifying the risks at all (in that section, which is the published summary advice).

 

Much of the advice regarding single drinking sessions (ie don't drink 14 units in 1 sitting) seems to be predicated around the risk of injury, not harm from alcohol itself. This isn't made clear in the actual advice given.

 

They basically admit that there is no evidence for harm caused by small amounts of alcohol intake during pregnancy, but then go on to give the advice that pregnant women should not drink at all. The "precautionary principle", but also misleading, as it's likely to make women believe that any drinking (a small wine at a special event for example) is likely to cause harm when this is in fact not the case.

[Orzel]

Just more interfering from the nanny state .

 

Dont drink

 

Dont smoke

 

Dont eat fatty foods

 

Dont drink fizzy drinks

 

The list goes on and on.

 

Just live your life , eat and drink what you want ,have a smoke and to hell with the meddling nanny state .

 

Don't forget about don't drink and drive.

That must be worst one.

How they expect me to travel in one and a half ton of steel at 70 mph down motorway completely sober?

That is just too scary. You surely need a drink to cope with that.

 

Remember those are just guidelines people, no one will call police if you eat bacon butty with a pint instead of salad.

That is just summary of medical knowledge to date.

[sgtkate]

They basically admit that there is no evidence for harm caused by small amounts of alcohol intake during pregnancy, but then go on to give the advice that pregnant women should not drink at all. The "precautionary principle", but also misleading, as it's likely to make women believe that any drinking (a small wine at a special event for example) is likely to cause harm when this is in fact not the case.

 

I have given up booze completely (with the exception of a glass of champers on Christmas!) while I'm pregnant, well before the advice to do so came out, but this was more of a personal choice, that a) I like a drink, often a bit too many and I didn't want to risk having too much to drink and potentially harm my baby and b) if my baby was harmed for any unknown reason and I'd been drinking, I'd likely spend a considerable amount of time blaming alcohol and myself for it. It's actually been lovely not drinking for 6 months now, I'm not missing it anywhere near as much as I thought I would and I still like my drunken mates! Missing stout though!

[Cyclone]

I have given up booze completely (with the exception of a glass of champers on Christmas!) while I'm pregnant, well before the advice to do so came out, but this was more of a personal choice, that a) I like a drink, often a bit too many and I didn't want to risk having too much to drink and potentially harm my baby and b) if my baby was harmed for any unknown reason and I'd been drinking, I'd likely spend a considerable amount of time blaming alcohol and myself for it. It's actually been lovely not drinking for 6 months now, I'm not missing it anywhere near as much as I thought I would and I still like my drunken mates! Missing stout though!

 

I bet you've also given up Sushi and soft cheeses.

 

Pregnant women get given an awful lot of "advice" and made to feel guilty if they don't follow it.

Giving them information would be better IMO, and the ability to understand risk.

[sgtkate]

I bet you've also given up Sushi and soft cheeses.

 

Pregnant women get given an awful lot of "advice" and made to feel guilty if they don't follow it.

Giving them information would be better IMO, and the ability to understand risk.

 

I didn't like either beforehand. However, I've had quite a few rare steaks!

This isn't down to medical advice solely, this is down to me knowing myself and how I tend to act and feel, and deciding that I'd rather not be in a position to blame myself than have a pint. Not everyone who follows advice is doing it because of the awfulness of the health service and their conspiracy machine!

[Obelix]

Can you explain what this is to do with the EU? Or is this just you doing what a lot Brits do when they get annoyed with random government nonsense, blame it on the EU?

 

That's because a lot of random govt nonsense does come from the EU. However in this case it's certainly not the EU promulgating it as far as I am aware.

[Cyclone]

I didn't like either beforehand. However, I've had quite a few rare steaks!

This isn't down to medical advice solely, this is down to me knowing myself and how I tend to act and feel, and deciding that I'd rather not be in a position to blame myself than have a pint. Not everyone who follows advice is doing it because of the awfulness of the health service and their conspiracy machine!

 

And obviously you're quite right to decide for yourself and even better for knowing yourself well.

 

This advice doesn't come from the NHS though, it comes from the Department for Health, and entirely different beast. (And they do have public health in mind, I just dislike the way they assume that everyone is an idiot and must be treat like a child instead of an adult).

[sgtkate]

And obviously you're quite right to decide for yourself and even better for knowing yourself well.

 

This advice doesn't come from the NHS though, it comes from the Department for Health, and entirely different beast. (And they do have public health in mind, I just dislike the way they assume that everyone is an idiot and must be treat like a child instead of an adult).

 

I agree with your last line, but sadly there are people out there who put their dogs in microwaves to dry them off, because it didn't say not to put pets in microwaves...when we share this earth with those people you can understand why our government has to talk to the lowest common denominator.

[andysm]

The study is not quite what it seems.

 

Firstly they only looked at people who were at least 50 years of age, so the results are not necessarily relevant to people under this age

 

Secondly because they only included lifetime teetotallers (excluded people who used to drink but stopped), some of the sample sizes are tiny (16 people in one group, 19 in another) leading to huge margins of error making most of the results meaningless

 

The unadjusted results showed "protective effects [of drinking] were identified across a broad range of alcohol usage in all age-sex groups" - which I'm sure you would agree is certainly not what the headlines are suggesting.

 

The only group in the study which had a sufficiently large size for meaningful results were women 65 or over, and for this group the study found that there WAS a protective effect. For other groups no conclusions can be drawn because of the stupidly high margins of error.

 

The report then goes on to suggest a number of reasons why the observed protective effects may not actually exist, although they don't offer any evidence for these theories.

 

The conclusion of the report is that moderate alcohol intake is beneficial to women 65+, but there is no evidence of beneficial effects in any other group.

 

It would be just as valid to conclude that there is no evidence of any harm in any other group.

 

The report:

http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h384

 

A very interesting analysis of the data in the report:

http://understandinguncertainty.org/misleading-conclusions-alcohol-protection-study

 

EDIT: Just to clarify, pregnant women were not considered in this post

Edited January 11, 2016 by andysm
Clarification

[Janus]

They`ll av us in bed for 7 o`clock next.