UK Cuts Men's Recommended Weekly Alcohol To 14 Units (theguardian.com) 274
jones_supa writes: Men have been advised to drink no more than seven pints of beer a week – the same as the maximum limit for women – in the first new drinking guidelines to be released by the UK's chief medical officers for 20 years. They also advise there is no safe level of drinking for either sex, and issued a stark warning that any amount of alcohol consumption increases the risk of developing a range of cancers, particularly breast cancer. David Spiegelhalter from University of Cambridge said: 'These guidelines define 'low-risk' drinking as giving you less than a 1% chance of dying from an alcohol-related condition.'
Left wing PC crowd did this (Score:3, Insightful)
There is nothing scientific about it, and the medical profession say the change has nothing to do with new scientific data. The sole motivation driving this was to make men equal to female.
As if this bullshit is going to reduce anyone with a penis to change their drinking habits. /s
Re:Left wing PC crowd did this (Score:5, Insightful)
Then the freaking women need to start drinking more if they want to be equal.
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Then the freaking women need to start drinking more if they want to be equal.
I get the joke, but on a serious note, there are so many more important variables in alcohol tolerance and metabolism that gender isn't a big one.
I've seen women (small Asian women as well) that could drink most men under the table. This is because they've got a fast metabolism and a built up resistance to alcohol (and when you see the way they drink in Thailand, you understand why they've developed such a resistance so early in life). Its not just built up tolerance either, I can easily drink 10-12 pint
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There is nothing scientific about it
Fret not, most of us won't take any notice anyway.
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" Anyway, since when has it been left wing propaganda to be against alcohol or any other drugs?"
Pretty much since the beginning of the left wing workers' movement, at least in some european countries.
Here's (hopefully) a link to a Google translated web page about the Norwegian workers' movement's view on alcohol way back when.
https://translate.google.com/t... [google.com]
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There is nothing scientific about it, and the medical profession say the change has nothing to do with new scientific data. The sole motivation driving this was to make men equal to female.
As if this bullshit is going to reduce anyone with a penis to change their drinking habits. /s
Do you have a citation for that? The natural reason for it to vary by gender is because men are heavier than women, but in that case you're still better off giving both genders the same advice and giving them the option to scale by body mass. I don't see any other reason why men and women of the same size should have different alcohol recommendations.
This article [bbc.com] contradicts you and suggests this is a case of the guidelines catching up with the science and medical advice.
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There is nothing scientific about it, and the medical profession say the change has nothing to do with new scientific data. The sole motivation driving this was to make men equal to female.
As if this bullshit is going to reduce anyone with a penis to change their drinking habits. /s
Do you have a citation for that? The natural reason for it to vary by gender is because men are heavier than women, but in that case you're still better off giving both genders the same advice and giving them the option to scale by body mass. I don't see any other reason why men and women of the same size should have different alcohol recommendations.
This article [bbc.com] contradicts you and suggests this is a case of the guidelines catching up with the science and medical advice.
Also: women typically have higher percentages of body fat, meaning that for the same overall weight, women have a smaller volume of water to dilute the alcohol and end up with a higher concentration. http://www.builtlean.com/2010/... [builtlean.com] Women have lower levels of alcohol dehydrogenase than men in youth but higher in middle age. http://alcalc.oxfordjournals.o... [oxfordjournals.org]
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There is nothing scientific about it, and the medical profession say the change has nothing to do with new scientific data. The sole motivation driving this was to make men equal to female.
As if this bullshit is going to reduce anyone with a penis to change their drinking habits. /s
Right... like the fact that men are larger than women has no effect on the volume of alcohol they can consume vs. their blood concentration... Isn't there a conspiracy site somewhere that you should be studying?
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This isn't for tolerance of binge drinking, and this isn't about intoxication, this is cancer risk from low level consumption, which is relatively independent of gender.
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The message from Snowden is that that the government cannot keep secrets. If they have your surfing history, it is probably available on a USB stick in all markets in Karachi for $1.99 ONO.
And probably everyone's surfing history can be bought for download for $49.99 from QVC or BlackHatsRus.com for 0.5 Bitcoin.
Bloody hell (Score:2)
Blimey! If I'm only allowed one pint a day I might as well make it a Duvel or a Tennents Super.
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It's a liquid, you idiot. Open the can/bottle and pour out as much as you like.
Not Friday (Score:2)
the same as the maximum limit for women
I guess we're doing these on any day of the week now.
Reaction is the problem rather than advice itself (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest annoyance here is that we feel we should follow the guidelines - the assumption is that medical guidance should be followed, without taking into account that you are definitely going to die someday so your life shouldn't be about avoiding it at all costs.
If people were immortal except for the effects that might kill us, then yes it makes sense to do your best to mitigate those risks. But we're all going to die after 80 or 90 years of life, so how do you want to spend those years? Starving yourself (mild hunger is best for longevity), eating healthy but borderline boring food, avoiding all mind-altering substances. It doesn't feel like a life, it's hardly exploring the bounds of existence is it? Yes I'm sure some ultra-smug teetotallers will be able to get some sad satisfaction from this news, (yay other people's misery), but given that the human race has *always* sought out chemical mood alteration, perhaps it should be something we accept as a basic need. If not alcohol, then what? There are a bunch of essentially harmless synthetic drugs that we criminalise for no good reason, that at the very least would be better than alcohol.
Discourage alcohol, but then accept that people will take drugs of some sort, so what should you encourage?
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Guidelines are for those who seek guidance; you may not be interested, but official guidelines are important in many cases, as for example in health care. And since it isn't law, you are free to ignore it as you see fit.
But we're all going to die after 80 or 90 years of life, so how do you want to spend those years?
Well I would prefer to spend as much of my life being as physically healthy and as clear minded as possible. I don't really have a thing against recreational drug use - I have done my bit in my time - but it too becomes a dull routine after a while, and it does take away from my general well
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Unfortunately health guidelines gave a tendency to gain legal momentum, especially here, so it is worth keeping aware of what's being said.
Interesting that you should mention learning an instrument as something to do to stretch yourself since so much great music is well known for being created whilst on substances. Some things aren't best sober...
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They aren't saying never drink, just that it's not a good idea to do it regularly. That's what does the damage, regular use of alcohol/drugs/tobacco. And alcohol is addictive, so it's easy to get hooked.
Enjoy yourself now and then, but take it from someone who is living it: you don't want to spend decades with some disease that makes life miserable, if you can avoid it. Like a child you want to crank the music up, thinking it won't affect you... But it's all cumulative.
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They are, because they also sat don't binge. They are saying you can have a couple of pints 3 times a week, there aren't many other configurations that work with all the restrictions in the recommendations.
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Sure, why not. I mean I don't think that follows at all, but even if it did that's not a bad way of organising your one shot at existence.
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Both safer options.
Trubba not (Score:2)
Nee probs, I can do that in a day.
I need to start drinking more. (Score:2)
I am no where near the 14 units.
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Two standard units a day should not cause a lasting mental fog for any adult over ~100lbs.
Unless someone is consuming said alcohol via a method bypassing the stomach it is possible, but extremely difficult to get legally drunk with two drinks. For the liver sees it first, and absorption rates aren't instant, so there should never be a period with one excess ounce of alcohol in the blood stream.
If an adult feels anything two hours after two standard drinks they probably should have their liver function chec
COONTS (Score:2)
FOOKIN TELLIN US HOW MUCH FOOKIN PEEVE TAE HUV!? AH'VE HUD 14 UNITS BY LOONCHTIME ON A FOOKIN MONDAY, YA BUFTIE COONTS.
Guidelines Deny Science (Score:5, Informative)
"Boozing is unsafe at 'any level', thunders chief UK.gov quack: Show us your science. What? You mean you don't have any?" By Andrew Orlowski in The Register [theregister.co.uk] on 8 Jan 2016 at 16:02
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Repeated studies have shown that alcohol in moderation prolongs life: it reduces the risk of heart disease and strokes. In fact the benefits of alcohol in preventing strokes and heart disease are far clearer than the negatives of drinking.
Well, this is a little misleading. Alcohol is correlated with reduced risks of heart disease and strokes when consumed in moderation.
Is the cause alcohol itself, or is it something that tends to be associated with alcohol consumption, such as less stress, being more relaxed, etc.? This has come up with, for example, studies of pregnant women which seem to show slightly better outcomes (in some studies) for women who drink only a couple drinks per week, compared with women who abstain completely. In som
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True, but almost all the studies on moderate alcohol consumption's long-term effects (negative and positive) are correlational. And it's at a _robust_ effect; that is, no matter how many studies they do to try to make it go away (e.g. ascribing it to flavonoids in red wine), it stubbornly remains. To the point where saying "there is no safe level of alcohol consumption" is m
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To the point where saying "there is no safe level of alcohol consumption" is misleading to the point of deception.
Agreed. I actually basically said this toward the end of my last post.
Because there is a level of alcohol consumption below which, according to the best evidence, risk of various negative effects increases rather than decreases.
On the whole as a population study, sure. But obviously a double-blind study of alcohol consumption is impossible. And without that, it's hard to separate out the causality here. Alcohol consumption, for example, is highly correlated with social behavior. More social people tend to be in better mental and physical health. People who get older tend to drink less and become less healthy -- the "non-drinkers" in many studies tend to be
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For a blind study, probably spiking drinking water with ethanol/placebo should work. 7ml ethanol in 2litre water a day will be undetectable by taste/flavour right?
Cambridge University debunks study (Score:5, Interesting)
see http://understandinguncertaint... [understand...tainty.org]
Sadly, specious recommendations such as this (Score:2)
know what's funny here? (Score:3, Funny)
How ALL of the posts ranting that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption, that all studies show damaging health effects, etc, are AC. Not one rabid teetotaler will put his name to his posts.
But that's OK... (Score:2)
Tweet from British comedian Pat Condell (Score:2)
"Blah blah blah. https://t.co/bZPnXe2xXy
Cheers."
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CYM72-RWkAAlEar.jpg
Meanwhile in Australia (Score:2)
Meanwhile in a country full of criminals one of our prime ministers held the world record for sculling a yard of ale [wikipedia.org].
Even our more recent prime ministers has put some effort in. [youtube.com]
I wonder what her position of drugs is? (Score:2)
Is it her medical opinion that dope is unsafe at any level? Meth? Cocaine? Etc etc?
Not to mention (Score:2)
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A British pint is 568ml. An American pint is 473ml.
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And us americans weep, but enjoy our COLD and slightly smaller pints.
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And us americans weep, but enjoy our COLD and slightly smaller pints.
Beer is not beer. Some needs to be cold, some needs to be warm. A British ale tastes like an ashtray when cold, and a American beer tastes like arse when warm. Some particularly dry largers really benefit from being very damn close to their freezing point, whereas you wouldn't drink a whitbeer like that.
Budwiser is the exception. There's no acceptable temperature at which to enjoy one. One can only tolerate it.
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True, All we get is the Guinness Crap here, Or that horrific pisswater called Carling from GB.
now Beamish, that is a proper good pint with real flavor.
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And so you should be weeping. The cheapest, lowest quality Czech beer is better than the most expensive, best American beer.
The same is true for the women too.
That's an ignorant stereotype. The largest American brewer is currently Yuengling, and the rest are mainly craft microbrewries, many of which produce beers with quality among the highest in the world.
The vast majority of true crap beer on the market, such as Budweiser and Miller, is all from European companies.
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Different definitions of cold.
Many Americans wants their beer frosty, in a frozen glass with rime on it.
While Brits tend to think of 6-8 degrees C chilled beer as cold.
At the freezing temperatures Americans prefer, you can't get a smooth head on a beer. At most you get some foam that instantly collapses, and your beer goes stale.
And you lose out a lot of the flavour when it's too cold. It's that first sip after work that tastes absolutely fabulous, but if it's ice cold, you might as well have a glass of i
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It's all relative. It's the difference between cool and chilled. Go into a pub and order a British lager and a British cask conditioned real ale. You'll notice that the glass of lager is much colder. The lager is chilled using refrigerator technology. The real ale is at the temperature of the cellar which is cooler than room temperature but not refrigerated.
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"Thanks for the info, though my point is exactly that: a pint is not a reliable unit of volume."
It is, when you are in a UK pub, which is what the announce is focused at.
"One could drink lots and lots of a 1% grade beer."
The kind of beer you won't find at a UK pub.
So here they offer a SI-based volume of pure alcohol and then they convert to a usual unit for their targeted audience so it's just like someone in USA converting to "congress libraries" or "football fields" only it makes much more sense in this c
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I think the summary could do a better job at reporting news and use SI units -- avoiding such odd ones like a "pint", which are different in the various English-speaking countries to start with.
1 Unit = 10 ml pure alcohol. The smallest spirit measure used in the UK is a 25 ml single shot, equivalent to 1 Unit of a 40% v/v spirit. A 175ml medium glass of a 12% wine will give you just over 2 Units, and a 568 ml UK pint of a 3.5% beer nearly as much. A lot of beer is stronger than this, though - a 5.5% brew will give you over 3 Units per pint.
Re:Bad research (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu... [nih.gov]
Moderate Alcohol Consumption Is Not Associated with Reduced All-cause Mortality.
"During 206,966 person-years of follow up, 7902 individuals died. No level of regular alcohol consumption was associated with reduced all-cause mortality. The hazard ratio and 95% confidence interval in fully adjusted analyses was 1.02 (0.94-1.11) for 7 drinks/week, 1.14 (1.02-1.28) for 7 to 14 drinks/week, 1.13 (0.96-1.35) for 14 to 21 drinks/week, and 1.45 (1.16-1.81) for 21 drinks/week.
CONCLUSIONS:
Moderate alcohol consumption is not associated with reduced all-cause mortality in older adults. The previously observed association may have been due to residual confounding."
Re:Bad research (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu... [nih.gov]
RESULTS:
Male sex, being physically active, and good health status were independently associated with light to moderate drinking (P .001). An apparent protective effect of light to moderate drinking on mortality was evident in the unadjusted analysis and after adjusting for age, sex, risk factors, and cardiovascular events (adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) = 0.77, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.68-0.88, P .001), but after also adjusting for PASE and VAS, the relationship was no longer significant (aHR = 0.92, 95% CI = 0.80-1.05, P = .19). Follow-up physical activity was associated with baseline alcohol consumption; baseline physical activity did not predict alcohol consumption during follow-up.
CONCLUSION:
After accounting for health status and physical activity, light to moderate alcohol drinking had no direct protective effect on mortality.
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After accounting for health status and physical activity, light to moderate alcohol drinking had no direct protective effect on mortality.
Maybe alcohol causes physical activity and better health status? If only walking home from the bar.
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After accounting for health status and physical activity, light to moderate alcohol drinking had no direct protective effect on mortality.
Maybe alcohol causes physical activity and better health status? If only walking home from the bar.
More likely a lot of the light-to-moderate drinking crowd is going out for casual social drinking, and some of the people with less consumption are doing so because they don't get out much.
Staying home all the time is bad for your health.
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That is a classic justification mechanism for crazy morons in denial. There are tons of studies on this subject, with contradictory results (as is usual for medical studies with a political component). Sure, you can pick just the few percentage of studies that you agree with, but that doesn't mean you aren't a biased moron.
So far, we're pretty confident of the following:
1) Alcohol consumption correlates with lower mortality
1a) But people in at-risk groups drink less, including poor, extremely unhealthy, and
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That is a classic justification mechanism for crazy morons in denial. There are tons of studies on this subject, with contradictory results (as is usual for medical studies with a political component). Sure, you can pick just the few percentage of studies that you agree with, but that doesn't mean you aren't a biased moron.
So far, we're pretty confident of the following: 1) Alcohol consumption correlates with lower mortality 1a) But people in at-risk groups drink less, including poor, extremely unhealthy, and teetotalling ex-alcoholics. 2) Alcohol improves on some health markers 2b) But makes others worse. 2c) Which probably makes alcohol's cost/benefits dependent on other things, such as whether you have heart disease.
I think the clearest conclusion we can make is that the effect of light to moderate alcohol consumption on health is very small. It may be positive, negative or neither, and perhaps we could identify specific populations in which it has larger effects, overall it's is negligible. However, this only applies to light to moderate consumption; heavy consumption is clearly very bad for you.
(And before the AC calls me out for being an alcoholic in denial, I'll mention that I'm a non-drinker. I've never consumed
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That is a classic justification mechanism for crazy morons in denial. There are tons of studies on this subject, with contradictory results (as is usual for medical studies with a political component). Sure, you can pick just the few percentage of studies that you agree with, but that doesn't mean you aren't a biased moron.
So far, we're pretty confident of the following: 1) Alcohol consumption correlates with lower mortality 1a) But people in at-risk groups drink less, including poor, extremely unhealthy, and teetotalling ex-alcoholics. 2) Alcohol improves on some health markers 2b) But makes others worse. 2c) Which probably makes alcohol's cost/benefits dependent on other things, such as whether you have heart disease.
the protective effects of alcohol on circulatory disease has always been small, and arguably an artifact of being unable statistically to separate out all other correlated factors, whether lifestyle of moderate drinkers vs nondrinkers vs heavy drinkers, or the actual delivery of alcohol (wine and beer containing lots of other active compounds than alcohol; tannins, phenols, etc.) but it has up till now been relatively consistently found.
condensing a large volume of studies, these guys find the protective e
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You sound like a classic alcoholic in denial. All medical studies have shown that alcohol is bad for you and has no health benefits. No amount is "OK".
Saying something over and over does not make it true. This is complete bullshit.
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After accounting for health status and physical activity, light to moderate alcohol drinking had no direct protective effect on mortality.
That is where one can be mislead by the article, as they are talking about an increase in health problems, not an increase in mortality. Specifically they talk about cancers, which in most cases are seen very late in life. So, basically, you have a small increase in added health issues right before you die.
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After accounting for health status and physical activity, light to moderate alcohol drinking had no direct protective effect on mortality.
That is where one can be mislead by the article, as they are talking about an increase in health problems, not an increase in mortality. Specifically they talk about cancers, which in most cases are seen very late in life. So, basically, you have a small increase in added health issues right before you die.
cancers are seen late in life, because they tend to kill you. but yeah, they do typically take decades to develop. but the point is, that the more you irritate tissue, i.e. pouring substantial volumes of alcohol down your throat into your stomach on a constant basis, the sooner cancer will develop.
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Male sex, being physically active, and good health status were independently associated with light to moderate drinking (P .001).
CONCLUSION:
After accounting for health status and physical activity, light to moderate alcohol drinking had no direct protective effect on mortality.
The problem with these studies is that there's a huge elephant in the door called "phase of life" that probably correlates a bunch of variables. Like this sounds like the stereotype young bachelor, working to look attractive and out partying to meet women. I'm guessing that if you divide by alcohol consumption you get very different groups of people that affects mortality in many directions. Like suicide is a pretty big cause of death in young people and it's typically related to depression, not to people o
Meta-studies (Score:2)
Look at what you're citing "light to moderate alcohol drinking had no direct protective effect on mortality" - not "no effect" but "no direct _protective_ effect". I.e. it is saying there is no evidence for the hypothesis that drinking _helps_ your health.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-3... [bbc.co.uk]
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Whereas YOUR mindless insults actually DO matter ...
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Telling someone to grow up is not exactly an insult - if you have an issue with the BBC, discuss it like an adult rather than doing a fly by denunciation of the source without actually making any arguments to back up your issues. I dont care if you have issues with the BBC, but to denounce it when it is actually a pretty fair commentary on the governments new recommendations is ridiculous, and only points to you as the person with the problem.
Ans yes, I may be using "you" in the sense of the "Royal You", an
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I know we don't do this on /. but it'd be interesting to know the source of this.
You can access the original Guardian article [theguardian.com] by clicking the link "theguardian.com" in the title of the summary.
Re:if you are so shocked when people (Score:4, Informative)
Alcohol has a biological effect that I enjoy.
Like, say, caffeine. Or adrenaline.
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Not quite. That directly depends on how much is being drunk in the first place, along with other lifestyle and biological attributes of the individual in question. I suspect this 'recommendation' has more to do with politics than anything else.
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You must be fun at parties
Don't make fun of the designated driver.
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Here in the Netherlands we have muslims for that.
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Here in the Netherlands we have muslims for that.
Are your Muslims there all conservative fundamentalists?
Muslims I know drink, just as the Jews eat ham and Christians have sex before marriage.
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True story: the one Mormon I've hung around with had to go to rehab for blow.
Re: UK recommends alcohol? (Score:3)
And what is a Unit? Metric values should be used.
Re: UK recommends alcohol? (Score:4, Informative)
One unit of alcohol (UK) is defined as 10 millilitres (8 grams) of pure alcohol.
Although not an SI unit it is metric - it's just broken into an easier measure for many people to use (depending on the drink you're having you can approximate it between 1-3 Units and count the number of Units you're having that way).
Re: UK recommends alcohol? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: UK recommends alcohol? (Score:3)
The problem is that 'unit' requires knowledge that isn't easy to transfer between countries. If internationally recognized units were used it would be understandable for everyone without having to know sizes of beers&drinks specific to a country.
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It isn't strictly necessary for it to translate internationally. Foreign visitors to the UK don't need to know. If you come to the UK and are worried about drinking and driving, for example, the official blood alcohol test limit doesn't use that 'unit' anyway: it's more sensibly based on e.g. milligrammes per 100 mi
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[...] the official blood alcohol test limit doesn't use that 'unit' anyway: it's more sensibly based on e.g. milligrammes per 100 millilitres of blood [...]
I dispute this use of the term "sensibly".
BAC by volume is typically grams per 100mL. In many jurisdictions (e.g. US, Australia) it's written using the percent or permille symbol. There are other jurisdictions (e.g. Russia, Germany, Ireland) which measures BAC by mass (e.g. grams per 100 grams of blood), where the percent/permille symbol actually makes sense.
Just to confuse things even more, laboratory tests usually measure millimoles per litre and so the result has to be converted.
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The problem is that 'unit' requires knowledge that isn't easy to transfer between countries.
Yeah, unfortunately the UK picked a different standard from most places. A UK unit of alcohol is 10mL of ethanol at standard room temperature (i.e. 20C). The most common "standard drink" is 10 grams of ethanol at room temperature. Things would be simpler if we all standardised on that.
(Of course, the US measures a standard drink in millihogsheads or something because that's just how they roll.)
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It makes sense for Europe (at least) to standardise, since you can freely travel and hence freely drink in many countries if you're a UK citizen.
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As someone who never got the point of drinking alcohol, i just love seeing all the addicts of this harddrug (come on, lets be honest :p) defend their habits XD.
As someone whose father basically drank himself to death, I hope you die in a fire. Then we can both get high on inappropriate schadenfreude.
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What do you mean "rationalize"?
Are the recommendations right? Dunno, quite probably. Am I going to stop drinking? Nope. I like the taste of many drinks and I like the relaxation I get. I'm also not going to stop eating bacon which is pretty much death in thin slices, because it tastes so nice.
Personally, I don't think it's worth removing all pleasures to eke out the very last bit of life.
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And yes, if you feel better by drinking alcohol, go for it, but don't start bitching when society points out...
Just to clarify, this isn't 'society' pointing anything out, it's some people somewhere who have an opinion. And like most opinions, they can be safely ignored.
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FWIW (and IMHO), regardless of content, your post is rather painful to read given that every sentence ends–-inappropriately--with an emoticon. You can convey tone without having to literally wink.
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i thought that was already disproved (or at least disproved that the alcohol intake was the reason)
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*sigh*
First off, please use less emoticons... your posts look like they came from a hyperactive kid at an anime convention.
however, that's not what I'm sighing about. See, I was like you as a teenager. No alcohol, no tobacco and no drugs. You say you can have fun without these things? Great! Don't consume them. Don't get all "I'm better than thou" on us, because we can actually have fun BOTH ways. That makes us superior (at least mathematically).
I drinks .3l of beer per sitting and that occurs perhaps once
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Well, my insurance company pays about 60k a year for me to be able to go more than 10 meters from a toilet. Also the 30 to 40 shits of diarhea a day are a pretty strong indicator.
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Everything causes cancer. Fuck em. I'd rather lose 10 years and enjoy life than gain 10 years and hate it.
get cancer. you'll enjoy it.
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That is a fallacy.
As you get old you will (most likely) become reliant on healthcare at some point. Sure you can keep all your risks low, but you are in a thousand 'risk groups' to get something or the other affliction. And all those little percentages start rising with age.
One of those is going to get you. Rarely do people just fall over and die and if they do, chances are they could have prevented that by going to the doctor more often.
As long as this happens after your retirement age, we as a society don
Re:This just in: (Score:5, Informative)
That isn't a problem - there are no medical bills when you're dead.
Having just lost a friend whose breast cancer started 10 years ago, I'm acutely aware that if you die of cancer there can be huge medical bills before you are dead. (or there would be, if it wasn't all taken care of by the NHS as it was in this case).
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That isn't a problem - there are no medical bills when you're dead.
Having just lost a friend whose breast cancer started 10 years ago, I'm acutely aware that if you die of cancer there can be huge medical bills before you are dead. (or there would be, if it wasn't all taken care of by the NHS as it was in this case).
Then take up smoking - the cancer kills you much faster, and if it doesn't the heart disease will :-)
Re:This just in: (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, US is that country where you can't even drink in the streets and people resort to making fake IDs (!) to drink.
I think that may be why you are afraid of such "totalitarian" policies as you reading or hearing on TV or radio about a recommendation once in a while. What such evil "government" intrusion (if somehow physicians and University of Cambridge count as "the government").
The reality though is it's you Americans who are fined and jailed for drinking and jay walking and so on, AND you get little "socialized" healthcare. So I don't think oppression and healthcare are actually related.
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Either you drink or you don't. If you do, then you are incapable of living without being intoxicated. Ask yourself why you get drunk.
It is possible to drink without getting drunk
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Either you drink or you don't. If you do, then you are incapable of living without being intoxicated. Ask yourself why you get drunk.
It is possible to drink without getting drunk
"I don't care
What the people are thinkin'
I ain't drunk
I'm just drinkin'"
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And one little bit makes a man like a bum.
Now can you imagine a sorrier sight
Than a man eating fruitcake until he gets tight?"
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Right next to the bacon.