Talk:Long-term effects of alcohol/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Agenda for MCOTW

Having a quick review of this article, I can identify the following points:

• This is not about a disease, but a public health/epidemiology topic. Some variances will therefore have to be made from WP:MCOTW.
• A glaring omission is the development of chronic liver disease, on which there is significant (and worrying) epidemiological data available. At least some of the content of alcoholic liver disease should be discussed here. (I'm trying to borrow a copy of ISBN 0415275822 from one of its editors...)

Note: Theres a limited copy available to preview online here. Regards, CycloneNimrod^Talk? 11:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

• There is no section on psychiatric illness caused by, aggravated by, and possibly relieved by chronic alcohol use.
• We must apply a high level of scrutiny to all claims of benefit or harm. This is not child's play. News articles or other non-peer reviewed reports are not acceptable. Small observational studies cannot simply be cited unless they are methodologically highly sound and the conclusions are generalisable to most populations. Much rather than relying on individual studies we must try to find very large cohort studies, meta-analyses and systematic reviews. If this leads to citing less references but higher quality, we should be happy.
• We need a short section on the effect of alcohol on tissues. In many cases, adverse or beneficial effect of alcohol on an organ is not at all understood.

There seem to be many sub-articles that are very long but poor on actual information. Some may be merged here. JFW | T@lk 09:50, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I found this a very good paper: Room R, Babor T, Rehm J (2005). "Alcohol and public health". Lancet. 365 (9458): 519–30. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(05)17870-2. PMID 15705462.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) JFW | T@lk 09:52, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Spiro Keats (talk · contribs) asked me if we could also cast an eye on alcohol and cancer, to which he has devoted a lot of time. That article looks in a very good shape, and could certainly inform this article's content on alcohol vs malignancy. JFW | T@lk 12:41, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm surprised that there's no mention of folate deficiency or Korsakoff's syndrome in the article. I'll try to write something (see what's in my text books) after finals get over on Thursday if no one else has added a section yet. JPINFV (talk) 23:33, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

What are we doing about reliable but not peer reviewed articles? (e.g. things like eMedicine?) Shall we use them or stick entirely to the peered stuff? Regards, CycloneNimrod^Talk? 08:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I have a personal strong preference for leaving out Emedicine. For one thing, it focuses quite strongly on the American situation and does not adequately describe practice in the United Kingdom or elsewhere. Secondly, while Emedicine is "peer-reviewed" in the sense that fellow physicians review the content, it is not a classical source like a textbook or a journal. I'm open to persuation. JFW | T@lk 08:59, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I've added a very short psychological effects section to the article. I'll try and expand upon it but I could really use some decent sources to help? Regards, CycloneNimrod^Talk? 11:11, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm finding the differentiation between effects of light/moderate consumption vs abusive consumtion hard. We need some sort of structure e.g. two sections one for low consumption, one for heavy. Could be as two main sections, two sections per effect, or dare I say it as two articles :( LeeVJ (talk) 22:03, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

So, for example, Long-term effects of excessive alcohol consumption and Long-term effects of light or moderate alcohol consumption? Personally, i'm not sure, i'll go with consensus, but I reckon we could keep it as one article and just make it clearer. Regards, CycloneNimrod^Talk? 18:32, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with an article split. There is very little to say on low consumption - most conditions associated with alcohol occur only as a result of heavy drinking. Let's please keep it as it is.JFW | T@lk 08:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I suppose it could be reworded to start have each section on effects begin with effects of abstinence, low consumption moderate, heavy as a sort of progressive symptoms of a disease type section ? LeeVJ (talk) 11:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm somewhat dismayed by the complete absence of acute and chronic pancreatitis in this article. Something else for this aspiring gut doctor to do... JFW | T@lk 08:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't alcoholism damage the prefrontal cortex?

Liver disease and pancreatitis as the two major negative effects are missing sections. The article seems slanted towards the positive.72.211.139.189 (talk) 06:40, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I would like to add a link to: www.talkingalcohol.com The damaging effects of alcohol are clearly displayed and are viewable to any person(s) 18 or over. Contributions/79.121.177.78 (talk) 09:45, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Removed potsdam.edu website link

Please see a discussion here as to why this website does not meet WP:RS as an objective, third-party source: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2008 Archive Aug 1#About 400 links to the two sites of one individual Flowanda | Talk 01:02, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

"Beneficial" claim: I'm taking it out of the lead.

Okay, I'm taking out the section which currently reads:

Having between one to two alcoholic drinks a day has been shown to have positive effects on health, unless contraindicated,

with the reference

Yuan, Jian-Min; Ross, Ronald K; Gao, Yu-Tang; Henderson, Brian E; Yu, Mimi C Follow up study of moderate alcohol intake and mortality among middle aged men in Shanghai, China British Medical Journal, 1997, 314, 18-23.

Please don't re-add it without careful consideration.

• The study makes no causative claim
• The study's attempt at excluding a common causative factor for lowered risk of heart attack and alcohol consumption is rudimentary: age, level of education, and cigarette smoking. In particular, non-alcohol diet is totally ignored.
• The study itself cites several prior studies which appear to contradict the causative claim made here.
• The 95%-confidence claim of the study is a 4% lower risk of death by ischaemic heart attack in middle-aged Singaporean men who fall into the "1-14 drinks a week" group over the "lifelong non-drinker" group.
• The phrase "Having between one to two alcoholic drinks a day" is virtually meaningless. It's virtually impossible for any person to have at least one but no more than two standardised alcoholic drinks every day of their life; how people are categorised into consumption groups is itself a complicated question, and there is some reasonable suspicion, at least, that average alcohol consumption over a timeframe of weeks or months is a much worse indicator than the highest intoxication level reached regularly.

If you want to make an overall statement, it should be that no public health authority (that I'm aware of) recommends non-drinkers start consuming alcohol for health purposes, or alternatively a comparison of those (few) that do and those (nearly all) that don't. Note that a medical recommendation is itself a much weaker claim still than actual causation, and I do not believe even the weak claim, that a significant number of health professionals recommend alcohol consumption for non-drinkers in any case based on evidence-based medicine, rather than misinterpreted studies, is true.

In short, find a professor at a well-established university who tells people to drink alcohol, that it's good for them, and why, without misinterpreting statistics in an obvious fashion, and the claim can go in; otherwise, it's just outside the realm of evidence-based medicine. RandomP (talk) 15:43, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

answer to above

OK Here you go: How is the British Medical Journal? Association of alcohol consumption with selected cardiovascular disease outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis Paul E Ronksley, Susan E Brien, Barbara J Turner, Kenneth J Mukamal, William A Ghali BMJ 2011;342:d671 http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d671 http://www.bmj.com/highwire/filestream/376294/field_highwire_article_pdf/0/bmj.d671

BTW I am a real person who is a real physician. EtherDoc (talk) 05:54, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Hey, I am somewhat disturbed by the anti-alcohol POV in this article. Yes, physicians will not encourage non-drinkers to start in general, although the vast majority of physicians will admit that alcohol consumption has a well demonstrated benefit in overall longevity which has been documented for over 50 years now. Fact is that moderate (and maybe even high) alcohol consumption leads to significant decreases in cardiovascular death. Alcoholic cardiomyopathy occurs but is pretty rare, while ischemic heart disease and cardiac failure are very common. Over half the population dies from cardiovascular causes, and alcohol consumption (even in alcoholics) appears to have a benefit in coronary artery disease. Full disclosure: I am a physician and a moderate alcohol drinker. EtherDoc (talk) 05:14, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Numerous epidemiological studies have found an association between moderate alcohol intake and reduced coronary heart disease risk and also mortality rates. However, heavy and binge intake is associated with increased mortality rate and coronary atherosclerosis. From what I can gather, potential cardioprotective effects of moderate alcohol are thought to be attributed to an increase in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (which decreases LDL oxidation and removes cholesterol from arterial walls and transports it back to liver), a decrease in plasma fibrinogen concentrations --> decreased platelet aggregation, increased fibrinolysis, increased NO production, increased insulin sensitivity, and antioxidant activity by re-reducing vitamins with NADH. On the other hand, heavy intake is associated with decreased fibrinolysis and increase or rebound of platelet aggregation, hypertension, and arrhythmias.

The above paragraph is incorrect. Heavy alcholics rarely ever have coronary atherosclerosis. They much more often die from lung disease as most of them also smoke considerably. EtherDoc (talk) 05:14, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Here's a recent review article that elaborates on what's currently out there to suggest beneficial/detrimental effects of alcohol: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19075312.

Unfortunately, I don't think there are any randomized intervention studies conducted on alcohol and mortality rates. Virtually all evidence of an association between cardiovascular effects and alcohol consumption comes from observational studies with a greater emphasis being seen with positive (beneficial) results with moderate alcohol (though this may be due to publication bias). But I still think it might be worth mentioning a potential beneficial effect of moderate alcohol consumption but that this conclusion is controversial due to numerous potential confounders in certain studies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.90.163.139 (talk) 13:39, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Reply: Again, there is overwhelming epidemiological evidence of health BENEFIT associated with moderate alcohol consumption. Study after study has shown decreased cardiovascular disease and death. Overall longevity (all causes) is increased. Sure alcoholism is serious and associated with many medical and psychiatric problems, but the majority of alcohol consumers do not develop alcoholism. See http://www.bmj.com/highwire/filestream/376294/field_highwire_article_pdf/0/bmj.d671 EtherDoc (talk) 20:44, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

(Excessive) focus on moderate drinking breaches NPOV

As the article stands (27th Nov 2008), some sections focus solely on moderate consumption, with complete disregard to the effects of heavy consumption. For instance, the section "cardiovascular system" and the subsections "Cardiovascular disease"; "Coronary Heart Disease"; "Coronary Vascular Disease" ; "Peripheral Arterial Disease" ; "Intermittent claudication (IC)" ; "Heart attack and stroke", moderate consumption levels were discussed, but no mention was made of the effects of heavy consumption. Consequently, these sections are overwhelmingly positive, whereas discussion of heavy consumption would highlight deleterious effects.

This is not intended to be an article on the long-term effects of 'moderate' alcohol consumption - it is an article on long-term effects generally. The selective attention to moderate consumption biases the article.

NcLean 114.76.96.115 (talk) 23:27, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Strongly disagree. Agree it is important to differentiate between less common heavy consumption of alcohol, and the vast majority of alcohol consumption which is less than heavy consumption. Are there medical questions about the cardiovascular benefits of moderate alcohol consumption? No. These benefits are well documented. Are there medical questions about the deleterious effects of heavy alcohol consumption? No. These deleterious effects are well documented. Are there individuals who are confused and think that all alcohol consumption is problematic? Yes. They have shortened life spans. EtherDoc,MD (not employed by the alcohol industry) EtherDoc (talk) 20:55, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

This is possibly the worst Wikipedia article I've ever seen, and that's pretty bad. Who wrote it, the Alcoholic Beverage Association? Study after study, reference after reference, trying to state some f***ing positive aspect of alcohol consumption. Alcohol is a f***ing poison. It is habit forming and addictive to some people. To say that there are any positive effects is a f***ing lie by the peddlers of this shit. No single substance causes as much loss of productivity, crime, and destruction as alcohol. The people who write this sh*t need to have their bottles taken away for good, you self justifying pr**ks.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.18.183.226 (talk • contribs)

Your vehemence against alcohol is almost like that of a former alcoholic (who tend to be the most anti-alcohol people you'll ever meet because they think that everyone is like them and cannot handle it). You are wrong on several counts. In "moderation" alcohol does not have a huge amount of negative effects, which should be stated in the article. I agree that the negative consequences of long term heavy drinking should be cleaer though. (BTW, a lot of things that we ingest or are exposed to are "poisons" in their own right - it is the dosage and length of exposure that is important). There are a few "poisons" or "toxic substances" that can have beneficial effects in small quantities - for example Hydrogen Sulphide's potential use in heart disease. Saying that it is a "f**cking lie" to say alcohol may have some positive effects is quite frankly anti-science and NPOV in itself, as you are coming from a biased viewpoint. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GimpyFauxHippy (talk • contribs) 12:24, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree, most NPOV article I've seen on wikipedia. Someone should really rewrite. 99.255.5.248 (talk) 21:33, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I have done quite a bit of a rewrite and have removed a lot of biased and poorly sourced info, please make further suggestions of how the article can be further improved. Also please do consider registering an account and using reliable sources, eg pubmed for finding medical papers to quote to cover the impacts of heavy drinking. I was surprised at just how biased the article was when I read it in full. A lot of it was just copied and pasted, entire sections were copied and pasted quotes. Occasionally a short quote or two can be justified but a good third of this article was copied and pasted quotes, total copyright violation. I have reduced the amount of quoted text.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 04:12, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok I just did another major rewrite and got most of the bias out or added more up to date review articles. I think that it is clear that alcohol has some benefits at low levels for the general public but the way it was written by added by David J. Hanson who's funded by Distilled Spirits Council of the United States and who used sockpuppets, was basically a propaganda piece and highly biased. I think the remaining health benefits should stay but perhaps some research of the medical literature for the adverse effects of heavy use can be added.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 07:14, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your work Literaturegeek. It certainly is an improvement. However, I would still say the article is quite NPOV. Not that any of the information is necessarily wrong (that I know of), but just the amount of space dedicated to benefits vs. risks is still very unbalanced.

As to a more specific comment, the cancer section should be clarified. One source claims alcohol is a carcinogen, one claims it is not. Also, perhaps this recent study should be included: http://professional.cancerconsultants.com/oncology_main_news.aspx?id=43299 99.255.5.248 (talk) 10:50, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I've added in the view of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is unequivocal. The section does need further work, though. Nunquam Dormio (talk) 12:09, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

It seems that some people are very angry about any article that doesn't describe alcohol as evil. Given the fact that certain denominations of Christianity denounce the use of alcohol, it seems that there is a natural source for bias. This is just as ridiculous as the people who try to attack the evolution article as "NPOV" or biased. —Preceding unsigned comment added by PuckSR (talk • contribs) 03:12, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I think that it is more likely due to what the scientific literature says rather than there being a Christian bias or conspiracy to distort the long-term effects of alcohol. The article clearly describes the horrendous adverse effects of alcohol as well as the favourable beneficial effects of low-moderate alcohol consumptions. Compared to the horrific NPOV violations a sockpuppeteering professor from the alcohol industry did to this article where not even liver and pancreatic disease was mentioned but gave praise to having a drink before and after each meal to "kill bacteria" using weak old primary studies and WP:SYN I think that it is looking much better and certainly a lot more NPOV.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 03:34, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I would be very concerned about bias in both directions. Apparently a powerful lobby is pro-alcohol, while a large religious group is anti-alcohol. I make this argument since most of the anti-alcohol groups and the most popular alcoholic assistance group are religious(typically Christian) organizations. I was just commenting on the fact that it does have to be appreciated that edits are going to occur that exaggerate in both directions. Perhaps I missed quite a bit of editing, but claiming it was the "worst NPOV" article on wikipedia seemed a bit excessive.PuckSR (talk) 23:57, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I would differ, most of the "anti-alcohol" groups are either medical, psychology/psychiatry, run by recovering alcoholics or spiritual (eg AA). Which groups are you thinking of? I am thinking of the ones that do the most peer reviewed research and publication and agencies and support groups which offer services for addiction to alcohol and other drugs. I dunno if it is worth anything but I am not "anti-alcohol", if i have any POV it would be anti-harmful alcohol use. My educated guess would be that most people editing this article are recovering alcoholics, those who work with people getting off of alcohol and some researchers.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 02:10, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Also how do you define "anti-alcohol"? I don't think that this article is biased against non-harmful alcohol use. Many people drink alcohol without harm in clubs, bars and with meals, this article is not demonising such use.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 02:13, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

AA and other groups do have an anti alcohol viewpoint, and I would say some of it is almost religiously inspired. In short, there's bias and exaggeration on both sides. Alcohol isn't the cure for all ills, but it isn't always as bad as others would have you believe. GimpyFauxHippy (talk) 13:08, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

The article is not sourced to AA, so I don't see the relevance. The references used in this article are scientific. If you feel that there is a different point of view in the peer reviewed literature feel welcome to cite recent sources, preferably secondary sources. The harmful effects of alcohol are mostly limited to heavy daily use or regular binge drinking. Do you have any recent scientific references which say that it's harmful effects have been exagerated?--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 23:54, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

History and Emphasis of this Article

This page originated as a discussion of the controversy surrounding possible health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption. For the discussion page on earlier versions of the article, click here.

This may account in large part for the perceived imbalance of the article. It would benefit from being re-written by a subject matter expert. 147.114.226.180 (talk) 14:34, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks that explains it. I figured out who was behind the biased edits to this article, see section above.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 07:16, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Finished

I have done a number of edits over the past few weeks to the article to bring back balance to the articles. Previously there was a lot of people complaining over the years about the severe pro-bias of the article in favour of alcohol being a wonder drug. Whilst alcohol does appear to have some health benefits at low doses tese were greatly inflated and almost entirely to the exclusion of the serious health problems associated with excessive alcohol use. No doubt further improvements can be made to the article but as I don't believe that there are any serious overall issues remaining regarding neutrality I have removed the tags. If anyone disagrees feel free to point out remaining issues and if necessary readd the tags.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 11:16, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Questions about authenticity

No offence intended to the authors/editors of this article but i noticed a certain change in attitude about the positives and negatives of this article. In the start of this article i noticed that the authors/editors were very pesimestic towards the long term effects of eccesive consumption of alcohol but then you started to become more optimistic "Two recent studies report that the more alcohol consumed, the lower the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis" having positive attitudes towards eccesive consumption of alcohol. Maybe there was some outside influence in this sudden change in attitude??? Ulyanov322 (talk) 01:00, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. Previously this article was severely biased in favour of chronic daily alcohol consumption but largely omitted the harmful effects. I removed a lot of the bias and added in the harms of alcohol. I didn't remove some of the positive effects which were cited because I was unable to find refs which disputed those claims. It seems factual that alcohol reduces rheumatoid arthritis. Alcohol however, increases the risk of gouty arthritis so that section is relatively neutral anyway. What changes do you think should be done to the article?--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 05:59, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be a lack of information

There seems to be a serious lack of information in regards to the negative effects of alcohol on the brain. I have a hard time believing that alcohol is harmless to the brain and if that is the case, it's very well worth noting in fine detail [test results, medical research, etc]. Things like "atrophy", just don't cut it. What's the quantity of atrophy? What's the cause [a.k.a. the mechanism of action]? IMO, this article leaves much to be desired in this regard.

 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.202.194.131 (talk) 08:38, 3 June 2009 (UTC) 

Talking Alcohol is an informative and useful website highlighting the damaging effects of alcohol. The negative effects are clearly displayed and are viewable to any person(s) 18 or over. Contributions/79.121.177.78 (talk) 09:53, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Title and content: Long-term effects of alcohol abuse

The title should be a little more specific here. Most of the article deals with the effects of long-term alcohol abuse so that (or at very least "consumption") should be more clear from its name. I'd also remove ad hoc references to the benefits of moderate consumption for the same reason. --mikaul^talk 10:54, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Yea but then where does the content go on the beneficial effects of low - moderate alcohol consumption go to? The article as it is currently is named and its content puts long-term alcohol use into context, covering both non-harmful possibly beneficial use and harmful effects; I think that it is a nice balance now and informative to the reader.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 00:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree Scinquisitor (talk) 19:37, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree, and this article badly needs more medical research evidence and less reliance on public health guidelines which are as much to do with effecting change in the public's behaviour as with the medical evidence. This is an encyclopedia not a public health agency's website [user:Byronsharp] 13 December 2009.

also agree Scinquisitor (talk) 19:37, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

This Article: A History

So, two years ago I found this article in utter disarray: apparently, it began life as something called "Moderate Drinking Controversy" as the brainchild of some very one-sided research, and with the addition of some countervailing data it had become "Alcohol and Health." I reworked it completely, deleting a bunch of useless information and trying to coral the gluttonous article into clean, cogent sections [1], and renamed it "Long-term Effects of Alcohol" to reflect its core content. Now two years later I return to find that it's been completely revamped to include solid medical data (of which I had none) with the expertise of those who understand the field (which I do not). But, awesomely, the structure I parsed still remains. Really, this is near miraculous – it's like writing a doctoral thesis by just putting some subheadings on a sheet of paper and waiting for the text to spontaneously coalesce.

Isn't Wikipedia amazing? --Xiaphias (talk) 19:56, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

This article still feels biased

There is a wealth of credible scientific evidence demonstrating the health benefits of moderate alcohol intake and yet this article still feels biased against the health benefits of moderate drinking. At the very least, as someone else suggested, it should be renamed to something which reflects its current purpose which is mostly to discuss the negative effects of alcohol abuse. This is a disappointment. --68.105.141.111 (talk) 18:12, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

That is because there is a wealth of scientific evidence on the harms of alcohol which greatly outweigh any possible benefits. Of course many people drink alcohol moderately without any harm and possibly some benefit and pleasure. Conventional medicine and health bureaucracies do not prescribe nor advocate mass medication with moderate amounts of alcohol due to the risks which greatly outweigh the controversial benefits. Safer alternatives such as exercise, low fat diet and if indicated pharmacotherapy are proven and the mainstream way of improving cardiovascular function. This article reflects the mainstream view on alcohol I feel and accurately and fairly represents the peer reviewed literature in my opinion. However, if you have a good quality source covering a view point which you feel this article is not addressing then please feel welcome to edit this article and add it.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 21:41, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

"That is because there is a wealth of scientific evidence on the harms of alcohol which greatly outweigh any possible benefits" is a grossly inaccurate statement. Transparently incorrect claims like this likely cause readers to doubt many of the accurate claims which are made within the article. That is to say, it comes off as a scare tactic and undermines the impact of the article greatly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.105.141.111 (talk) 00:15, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

It is not inaccurate, you did not address the other points in my post to you, please address them. Furthermore you have not yet provided any references for your opinion; encyclopedic articles are built upon references not opinion, see WP:NOR. I have sent you a welcome message with links to how to build an encyclopedia and I have already invited you to add references to the article, there is no point continuing this disagreement without you providing references.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 13:34, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

This article suffers from one of the classic problems I have found with Wikipedia: someone feels they own it, and has all the time in the world to spend defending their edits. It's pretty obvious from the lack of NPOV and the number of posts on the discussion from a single individual what is going on here. I suggest that any party who has edited this page in the past 12 months walk away for a good long time for the benefit of the project. 75.80.128.222 (talk) 06:25, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I suggest you get yourself an account and start making the changes you want to see, with proper citations of course. Nunquam Dormio (talk) 06:52, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) 75.80.128.222, there are no issues of ownership; as can be seen in the conversation above I invited the editor to contribute using references to the article. Likewise you are invited to contribute to the article, using well referenced content. WP:MEDRS is the sourcing guideline that should be used for this article.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 15:17, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

"Well referenced content"? Then how about I eliminate the second image, which lists "brain atrophy" as an effect of moderate consumption, but is not supported by any reference whatsoever? And while on the subject: shouldn't there be some policy against adding substantial text to an article in the form of an image that can't be corrected, edited, referenced properly etc.?

D0nj03 (talk) 19:59, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I was referring to the article text. I was not involved in the creation of the image, but you may like to contact the author of the image to discuss any concerns you have or you could raise your concerns on the image talk page, File_talk:Possible_long-term_effects_of_ethanol.png. The references which the image was based on may have been removed from the article since the image was made. I have added two reviews of the medical literature. See here.[2]. Please try not to get touchy when discussing article content. If you don't like the article content, then try to find good quality secondary medical sources to add balance to the article. If you find that you don't like what the medical literature says, then get angry with the medical literature, rather than with your fellow wikipedian editors. Have a nice day. :)--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:52, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

"If you don't like the article content, then try to find good quality secondary medical sources to add balance to the article."

Excuse me? Why not just eliminate unreferenced statements altogether? Since when is it other people's job to find references against a statement some careless guy felt like adding with no supporting proof at all? Have you ever heard about the "burden of proof" and how it rests with the person making a statement and not with those who disagree? How about if I just start adding whatever crazy unsupported statements I like until the article gets three times longer and then leave you to work for months to find references to contradict what I said? Is that really how you think Wikipedia should work?

D0nj03 (talk) 19:07, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

You are excused. What unreferenced content in the article do you have a problem with?--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 19:12, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

It appears to be the opposite now. It mostly talks about the good effects of alcohol. (207.6.166.24 (talk) 23:25, 2 January 2012 (UTC))

Metabolic/electrolyte effects?

Shouldn't the effects on magnesium, potassium, etc be included as a metabolic effect?--192.77.126.50 (talk) 13:20, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

This article contains bias

I am talking about the whole article, but i will give just a few examples.

Here is from the alcohol and stroke section.

Compared to abstaining, drinking in moderation is associated with an increased risk of stroke. Light drinking offers no benefits in prevention of stroke.[50]

The reference leads as to a news article by BBC.

However, if you we go a database of scientific literature such as PubMed and check out the reviews on alcohol and stroke here is what the latest articles will be about.

"An inverse association between moderate alcohol intake and cardiovascular risk, in particular coronary disease and ischemic stroke, has been demonstrated in many epidemiologic studies"

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19715411

"Light-to-moderate drinking is probably unrelated to increased risk of any cardiovascular condition and is related to lower risks of CAD, ischemic stroke and CAD-related heart failure. A protective alcohol-CAD hypothesis is supported by plausible biological mechanisms attributable to ethyl alcohol. "

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19419257

"This review focuses on the most recent studies that show the association of environmental factors, nutrition, alcohol, tobacco, education, lifestyle and behavior with the risk of vascular disease, including ischemic stroke and cerebral hemorrhage. The link between air pollution and stroke risk has become evident. Low education levels and depression are established as risk factors. This is also true for heavy alcohol consumption, although moderate drinking may be protective"

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19715411

"An extensive body of data shows concordant J-shaped associations between alcohol intake and a variety of adverse health outcomes, including coronary heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, congestive heart failure, stroke, dementia, Raynaud's phenomenon, and all-cause mortality."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17825708

"Epidemiological studies of middle-aged populations generally find the relationship between alcohol intake and the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke to be either U- or J-shaped. "

"The consistency in the vascular benefit associated with moderate drinking (compared with non-drinking) observed across different studies, together with the existence of credible biological pathways, strongly suggests that at least some of this benefit is real. However, because of biases introduced by: choice of reference categories; reverse causality bias; variations in alcohol intake over time; and confounding, some of it is likely to be an artefact. "

"While regular moderate alcohol consumption during middle-age probably does reduce vascular risk, care should be taken when making general recommendations about safe levels of alcohol intake."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17326330

There are all independent reviews of primary source articles done by real scientists. All of the quoted articles are fresh 2006-2010.

As far as I remember this wikipedia article: some of these references were present here, but deleted.

In this case and in many other cases the expressed view in this article contradicts the scientific literature. Sure, the cause-relationship may not be proven, as it requires specific randomized trials, but, as I have allready quoted "The consistency in the vascular benefit associated with moderate drinking (compared with non-drinking) observed across different studies, together with the existence of credible biological pathways, strongly suggests that at least some of this benefit is real"

A rather neutral phrase can be found at the national stroke association web site:

"Scientists are still figuring out how alcohol use can be linked to stroke. The most important thing to remember is that a doctor is the best resource for determining how alcohol use will affect stroke risk. In some studies, drinking lots of alcohol has been negatively linked to stroke. For example, more than 2 drinks per day may increase stroke risk by 50%. Other studies have indicated that 1 alcoholic drink a day may lower a person’s risk for stroke, provided that there is no other medical reason for avoiding alcohol. Although recommendations for moderate alcohol consumption range from 1 to 2 drinks per day, the vast majority of healthcare professionals agree that drinking more than one to two drinks each day can increase stroke risk and lead to other medical problems, including heart and liver disease, and possibly brain damage"

http://www.stroke.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Alcohol

• note that one drink is one glass (5 ounces) of wine or equivalent

Thus the best evidence we have shows us that in terms of stroke, the risk may increase if we drink a lot and does not increase if we drink 1-2 drinks per day and may even decrease with that amount.

Compare this to this misinterpretation:

"Compared to abstaining, drinking in moderation is associated with an increased risk of stroke. Light drinking offers no benefits in prevention of stroke" - Wikipedia

We observe a better situation, yet still an absurd one here:

"Some research has claimed the all-cause mortality rates may be 16 to 28% lower among moderate drinkers (1–2 drinks per day) than among abstainers.[14][15][16][17] New York Times journalist Roni Caryn Rabin reasons that the statistics of this research are flawed.[18]"

Why is a journalists oppinion (I myself am as well a journalist) treated on equal grounds as the evidence in epidemiological studies, provided by real scientists? How about I write an aticle in press about bananas being bad for your health (for example: the benefits of bananas are exagerated by the pro-banana farmers lobby, while actually they cause cancer") and we add a link to that to the wikipedia article about bananas?

Sure some studies may be and are flawed, however, there are a lot of high-quality meta-analysis, that review the high quality studies and come to the same conclusions (which are by the way not refered to).

I will give one example:

"The selection of nondrinkers as a reference group has been questioned because this group may include ex-drinkers who stopped drinking because of health problems. A subgroup analysis restricted to studies that excluded either ex-drinkers or very light drinkers from the reference group generated a pooled curve that indeed predicted a lower (though statistically significant) protection, confirming the importance of properly selecting the reference group in studies on alcohol and health"

"In conclusion, this meta-analysis confirms the hazards of excess drinking but also indicates the existence of potential windows of alcohol intake that may confer a net beneficial effect of drinking, at least in terms of survival, both in men and in women. Heavy drinkers should be urged to cut their consumption, but people who already regularly consume low to moderate amounts of alcohol should be encouraged to continue."

"The degree of association was lower in adjusted studies, as might be expected in view of several confounding factors characterizing observational studies on drinking habits; however, the benefit of light to moderate drinking remained in a range of undoubted public health value (15%-18%). Although residual confounding cannot be excluded, it would be very unlikely to modify the scenario in a substantial manner. We found indeed that when adjusted and unadjusted data derived from the same studies were compared, the maximum protection conferred by light to moderate drinking only decreased from 19% to 16%; we can thus presume that, even in the pessimistic hypothesis that residual confounding would have the same strength in lowering the protection as that of known confounding, the "real" (maximum) protection against total mortality associated with low levels of alcohol consumption would still be higher than 10%."

http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/166/22/2437

The number of deleted links to peer-reviewed reviews and articles (see old history) in this wikipedia article as well as the amount of misinterpretations of actual studies truly amazes and does not encourage editing of this article personally.

I believe this article requires serious re-editing by someone with more nerves than I have.

Scinquisitor (talk) 15:43, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah yes, you have made good points; thank you for pointing out these problems in the article, Scinquistor. The article is only a B class article so there are several areas in the article which can be improved upon; the references you say in the history being deleted, I am not sure how far back you are going in the article history but efforts have been made periodically to make the article more compliant with WP:MEDRS which often means replacing old often primary research with newer peer reviewed secondary sources. I have deleted the BBC and New York Times references and also some other redundant, old and outdated references. Hopefully this will bring the article more in line with WP:NPOV and WP:MEDRS and address your concerns. :-)--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 21:48, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

It is something to start with, however the problem I issued is not solved.

It was said that

"to make the article more compliant with WP:MEDRS often means replacing old often primary research with newer peer reviewed secondary sources"

However, going back to strokes:

Wikipedia: "A 2003 Johns Hopkins study has linked moderate alcohol use to brain shrinkage and did not find any reduced risk of stroke among moderate drinkers"

Yet newer 2006-2010 peer-reviewed reviews I quoted above do suggest a reduced risk among light drinkers. Will there be any objections if I add something like "However several more recent reviews suggest that there is J-shaped associations between alcohol intake and the risk of stroke" with the mentioned references? I would also add a link to the Stroke association web site, saying that more than 1-2 drinks is bad and 1-2 is ok and maybe even good (according to some studies).

Also, I'm new to wikipedia editing, so I'm not sure how to deal with such things:

"Excessive alcohol consumption in Russia, particularly by men, has in recent years caused more than half of all the deaths at ages 15-54 years."

This claim appears bogus, despite being published in a respected peer-reviewed journal.

This original article "Alcohol and cause-specific mortality in Russia: a retrospective case–control study of 48 557 adult deaths" contains an interesting quote:

"These corrected percentages are similar to those shown in tables 4 and 5, and were not materially affected by finer stratification for potential confounders (AMOUNT SMOKED, year of death, years since death, marital status, relationship to informant, ethnicity, education, occupation, socioeconomic status, or recent change in socioeconomic status)"

Basically the authors "show" but do not mention that in their study smoking had no material effect on mortality. This contradicts with what Sir Richard Doll had tride to prove for such a long time. I mean "smoking kills".

The same table 4 of this article reveals to us that those who don't drink at all are at a more significant risk of death from all causes except for alcohol poisoning comparing to those drinking less than a bottle of vodka per week (even the alcohol industry does not make such claims). After this weird observation is explained with something like "some non-drinkers actually drink a lot and hide it from us" (not a quote - see text for real context) the non-drinkers are omitted from the analysis and ... well you know the rest.

This actually explains to me why the reference to this article is some kind of big abstract/ press release, not the complete Lancet study (The Lancet, Volume 373, Issue 9682, Pages 2201 - 2214, 27 June 2009).

So my question is... (if anyone can answer) can this article be used in the smoking article as proof that smoking doesn't affect mortality rates in Russia? Or maybe there is some kind of procedure that allows some kind of experts (I don't claim to be one) to evaluate if peer-reviewed articles are coherent?

Has anyone actually read the article except for me, to confirm or not confirm my findings of weirdness?

"I am not sure how far back you are going in the article history "

One or two years ago. Something like that. At that time the article contained much more credible peer-reviewed sources on most subjects and much less speculations. It was also somewhat biased (there was little criticism of the data), but atleast everything was consistent and linked to multiple independent scientific studies.

Scinquisitor (talk) 22:46, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

You are welcome Scinquistor to replace the 2003 primary John Hopkins study with a secondary peer reviewed source, I don't think there is enough justification in keeping it in along with the reviews you propose adding. :) Ok Russian study, the original study] says this,

"Interpretation

Alcohol-attributable mortality varies by year; in several recent years, alcohol was a cause of more than half of all Russian deaths at ages 15—54 years. Alcohol accounts for most of the large fluctuations in Russian mortality, and alcohol and tobacco account for the large difference in adult mortality between Russia and western Europe."

As you can see they under the heading interpretation, the authors interpret their results as alcohol causing over 50 percent deaths in Russia, so I do not see justification for removing that statistical data. I don't have the full text but this quote that you copied from it, "not materially affected by finer stratification",,, they say NOT affected,,,. I think if authors interpret their findings as alcohol caused over 50 percent of deaths in Russia then we should go with their interpretation rather than our own, per WP:NOR.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 19:32, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that we should not mess with interpretation. But you must agree that this is a bit weird of a study. I did not suggest publishing any original research. I just wanted to ask if there is some protocol that allows to question the validity of a study. I have found one comment about this article in the Lancet journal. Here is a quote: "David Zaridze and colleagues (June 27, p 2201) investigated the effect of alcohol consumption on cause-specific mortality in Russia and observed that high alcohol intake had a protective effect on death from breast cancer, a finding that contrasts with current evidence of increased risk of breast cancer with alcohol consumption." "All in all, careful interpretation of mortality statistics in relation to alcohol use is needed, taking into account other relevant risk factors, incidence, and survival." Did alcohol protect against death from breast cancer in Russia?

Author(s): Soerjomataram I, de Vries E, Coebergh JW Source: LANCET Volume: 374 Issue: 9694 Pages: 975-975 Published: SEP 19 2009. Also something to concider. Scinquisitor (talk) 19:58, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Just realised that this referenced part was deleted:

"Some research has claimed the all-cause mortality rates may be 16 to 28% lower among moderate drinkers (1–2 drinks per day) than among abstainers.[14][15][16][17] New York Times journalist Roni Caryn Rabin reasons that the statistics of this research are flawed.[18]"

I only objected to the journalist article. The claim that "all-cause mortality rates may be 16 to 28% lower among moderate drinkers" is supported by more recent meta-analysis such as this one: http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/166/22/2437 and relativly new research articles such as this one: "Ann Epidemiol. 2007. Volume 17, Issue 5. Alcohol Drinking and Total Mortality Risk Arthur L. Klatsky, MD, Natalia Udaltsova, PhD". The newer numbers would be "15 to 18%" protection.

I think this information should be returned to the article with these new references (as well as the old ones). Total mortality is one of the most important long-term effects of alcohol and such studies should not be disregarded. Any objections? Scinquisitor (talk) 16:58, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I object to readding the deleted content for the reasons that I wrote in the edit summary, the references were too old, primary studies, newspaper etc; WP:MEDRS recommends that such studies are replaced with more uptodate papers. You are welcome to add the meta-analysis to the article as it is WP:MEDRS compliant.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 17:59, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Have read this comment after editing the article. I have added some new refences to the Overall mortality section. I will now delete the old references back. Scinquisitor (talk) 18:06, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

done. Please discuss: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_effects_of_alcohol#Overall_mortality Scinquisitor (talk) 18:27, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean "delete,,, back"? I am confused. The references seem good at first glance, the only thing that I would say is that the section is giving WP:UNDUEWEIGHT to the abstinence-moderate alcohol debate, the effects of heavy drinking should be discussed as well in greater detail.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:52, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

At first I readded the old references you removed plus added some new ones. Then I read your comment and deleted the old references to comply with you asking not to readd them. I also reformatted the references with the tool you linked me with. Thank you, it's very handy. Scinquisitor (talk) 21:34, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Update: added text and references on the harm of heavy drinking to adress the issue you pointed out about the article being WP:UNDUEWEIGHT to the abstinence-moderate alcohol debate. Scinquisitor (talk) 22:09, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

"Total mortality is one of the most important long-term effects of alcohol and such studies should not be disregarded." I agree. I came to this article to read about it. Constantinehuk (talk) 12:49, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Randomised trials

"There have been no randomised controlled trials to demonstrate the cardio benefits of alcohol"

This statement (as many other similar statements in this article concernings such trials) is true.

However, there have been no randomised trials to demonstrate many other intersting things.

For example. The evidence that smoking causes lung cancer is based on epidemiological studies not on randomised controlled trials (please correct me If i'm wrong and such studies exist).

From the article on smoking:

"Richard Doll in 1950 published research in the British Medical Journal showing a close link between smoking and lung cancer.[25] Four years later, in 1954 the British Doctors Study, a study of some 40 thousand doctors over 20 years, confirmed the suggestion, based on which the government issued advice that smoking and lung cancer rates were related.[26]"

25 and 26 are epidemiological studies (good ones).

Despite the fact, that these studies and further studies are epidemiological, nobody in the right mind would say something like: "no randomised controlled trials demonstrate that smoking causes lung cancer". Not because the statement isn't true. It is. But because epidemiological studies are regared as fair scientific evidence for causation and is the best evidence we can get. We know that smoking causes lung cancer from the observed difference in mortality between smokers and non-smokers plus some plausible biological mechanisms.

The same argument can be applied to the role of excessive alcohol consumption and (for example) breast cancer. There is epidemiological evidence. There are no randomised controlled trials to prove this. And there will never be such trials due to ethical issues. Yet, I think it's fair to warn people, that there is a link between alcohol and brest cancer.

So the current reasoning contains double standards. The current version of the article seems to invoke the "no randomised controlled trials" argument when we talk abot benefits of alcohol, but disregards this argument when we talk about ill effects, such as cancer, which are actually based on the same kind of evidence (with a few exceptions such as alhocol poisoning).

I'm new to wikipedia, so I don't know what it sais in the rules about this. So I merely express my oppinion for consideration:

To remove double standards issues and make the article more neutral, one of two policies should be chosen:

a.) Epidemiological evidence is enough to confirm potential cause of effect if biologically plausible mechanisms are provided. In this case phrases such as "There have been no randomised controlled trials to demonstrate the cardio benefits of alcohol" are true, but misleading and should not be used as an argument.

b.) Epidemiological evidence is not enough and randomised controlled trials are required to confirm cause of effect for anything. In this case we can add "There have been no randomised controlled trials to demonstrate the alcohol consumption leads to X" where X is... well X is allmost anything.

Any oppinions?Scinquisitor (talk) 13:59, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah apples and oranges comparisons are not good examples,, but I do it myself too often. :) The evidence for an association with tobacco smoking is extremely strong, to the point of it being certain, some aspects of alcohol and its effect on health will be more controversial than others. I understand that you are new to wikipedia, really as wikipedians our job is to summarise what the best available sources say on a given topic. Text can be reworded, but only if it remains in line with what the cited source is saying.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:39, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the evidence for tobacco smoking is very strong, possibly stronger than for the benefits of alcohol. But this leads us to the conclusion that it's not the lack of randomized trials that is the real issue, but concerns about the epidemiological evidence, which is considered by some to be not strong enough. I'm yet unsure how to reword this. Scinquisitor (talk) 20:46, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Content should be worded, according to what recent reviews say, if two reviews disagree with each other, then both viewpoints should be included per WP:NPOV, be careful not to edit one's own version of the WP:TRUTH and stick to what reliable sources say and you will be on your way to being a master wikipedian. :p--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:49, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Has there been any progress on this matter? Currently, the main article Alcohol and cardiovascular disease states that there is considerable proof for a connection between good cardiovascular health and alcohol consumption, while the summary of said article on this page directly contradicts this. They should be made to agree, methinks. Anyone willing to undertake this, or should I give it a go? Steventrouble (talk) 20:07, 3 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.197.113.31 (talk)

Alcohol causing pseudo cushing's syndrome.

I'm aware that alcohol abuse causes a form of cushing's syndrome. With no knowledge on the pathophysiology behind this, I don't feel I can write about it. Can an expert on the subject offer some info? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.88.23.77 (talk) 11:11, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

"Even moderate levels of alcohol consumption are associated with an increased risk of certain forms of cancer"

This is simply ridiculous. Modern science and medicine officially recognize the benefits for human health of moderate alcohol consumption. But, even with common sense and avoiding the idiotic alarmism of certain anglo-saxon "scientists", 3,000 years of Mediterranean diet should at least teach something to the World, considering the extremely low cancer rates in the so called "wine belt". It's really a SHAME that someone writes bullshits like that. Someone should denounce these charlatans. I nominate the sentence for deletion. --Conte di Cavour (talk) 16:17, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Try reading Alcohol and cancer. Nunquam Dormio (talk) 17:44, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I can read whatever, I don't care at all, that's absolutely not the point and there is plenty of scientific literature that goes in the opposite direction. The point is that, even in the first lines of this page, there is written that 1-2 standard drinks per day provide great benefits for human health, so this is not only a bullshit, but also a logical contradiction, that is the worst thing that an encyclopedia could contain. Ah, please, the next time do reply in a consistent way. --Conte di Cavour (talk) 20:01, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

While moderate alcohol consumption is associated with decreased all-cause mortality (mostly due to the reduction of CHD incidents and other forms of vascular diseases) alcohol is not protective against cancer. There are many scientific studies showing that moderate alcohol consumption is associated with certain types of cancer (such as female breast cancer, for example, as the most proven case). But this has weaker impact on all-case mortality than the reduction of vascular diseases cases, so there is no contradiction between the statements. Scinquisitor (talk) 11:44, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Bad style?

"Alcohol should be regarded as a recreational drug with potentially serious adverse effects on health and it is not recommended for cardio-protection in the place of safer and proved traditional methods such as a balanced diet, exercise and pharmacotherapy." - Is this sentence written in the correct style? 85.210.182.62 (talk) 00:21, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, yes it is written as a moralistic sermon rather than as an informative neutral statement. More importantly it is incorrect. EtherDoc (talk) 02:21, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Adolescent brain development

Regardless of whether or not moderate alcohol consumption is beneficial for adults, alcohol exposure in adolescence, particularly in a chronic intermittent binge-type pattern, has negative effects on brain development. However, there was a complete lack of information on how alcohol effects brain development on this page. I added content to address a couple possible cellular mechanisms behind alcohol's effect on the adolescent brain, which is different than its effect on the fetal or adult brain. Cekeating (talk) 19:49, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Alcohol and essential tremor

I provided information regarding the molecular actions of ethanol in regards to essential tremor. I then provided a link to the essential tremor page where more in depth cellular mechanisms are explained. JChanelo (talk) 04:44, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

German version link

Hi, the german version of this article is, while still being related, on a different topic. Does anybody know how to correct that? thx— Preceding unsigned comment added by Panconojos (talk • contribs) 17:30, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

It looks like the German version is actually an article on alcohol poisoning. I'm assuming this is the closest thing to a translation of this article as is available. Not sure what the wikipedia policy is in cases like this -- is it better to have a somewhat-similar translated article or no translated article? -- but if you (or anyone) wants to change/remove what it's linked to, it's pretty easy: edit the article and scroll to the very bottom. Look for "[[de:Alkoholvergiftung]]"—that's what creates the German version link.--Xiaphias (talk) 19:38, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Ethanol vs. alcohol

Nowhere in the article is it specified that alcohol is used in place of ethanol, even though this article is linked to by at least one which is discussing different types of alcohol. This should be clarified in the lead or alcohol should be changed to read ethanol. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol#Toxicity Testem (talk) 16:27, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree and I have made the change suggested. See this edit. I hope that this resolves the issue that you raised.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 02:57, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Alcohol and protein synthesis??

As far as I know alcohol inhibits protein synthesis which could undo desired effects on muscular tissue from physical training

If anyone has time to write a paragraph about that this would be a nice source http://ajpendo.physiology.org/content/277/2/E268.full — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikeschaerer (talk • contribs) 13:59, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

reversion of my edit

Dec 31, 2012 Sminthopsis84 undid my edit commenting "Reverted the unexplained removal of medical risks such as cancer, fetal injury, etc."

My edit was valid because: Cancer and fetal injury are already in the paragraph above. Hypertension removed since alcohol in general improves hypertension. Much of the contribution seem biased. I will continue to edit this article hoping to simplfy, and present a scientific-medical perspective without bias toward or against alcohol. EtherDoc (talk) 20:52, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Mfbab. You seem to forget that alcohol is a drug of tolerance and dependence and that hypertension is a common withdrawal symptom in dependent drinkers and rebound effect in binge drinkers. I don't think your edit removing this content is valid because it is explaining why alcohol is not prescribed therapeutically nor recommended as a medicine by any health agency or beureaucracy that I am aware of. Alcohol in small quantities does indeed have some benefits but due to the risk benefit ratio it is not used in medicine nor is it recommended by mainstream healthcare providers except in very limited special circumstances.--MrADHD | T@1k? 21:55, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

I have left your reversion essentially as is. Well I'd like to think I'm a mainstream doctor. I take care of patients (and monitor their blood pressure every five minutes) everyday, and am quite familiar with the physiology of hypertension. Sure alcoholics have increased sympathetic tone. I use this often as a way to determine which patients are alcoholics. But these are patients with fairly significant alcohol consumption. Moderate drinkers don't get hypertension from their alcohol consumption, and likely have less overall hypertension. I'll add some references. And actually many physicians (including mine and myself) although not overly encouraging alcohol consumption, are fully accepting of their patients current moderate consumption realizing its general benefits. EtherDoc (talk) 23:03, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't doubt you are a good doctor and help many people as a practicing healthcare provider. :-) You are right that moderate consumption is not harmful (in individuals without a history of psychological or physical dependence on alcohol) and probably has some health benefits and I agree that most mainstream doctors are accepting of sensible drinking patterns by their patients.--MrADHD | T@1k? 21:26, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Disturbing Overall Anti-alcohol POV

As of January 2013 this article continues to have a strong anti-alcohol POV. Much of this seems to be from the addiction/psychological literature which naturally is concerned with alcohol dependence and the many problems associated with alcoholism. Talking about the well documented (and progressively better understood) benefits of moderate consumption is perhaps frightening to these groups. But Wikipedia should maintain a NPOV and simply present unbiased medical evidence, even if it contradicts the absolute anti-alcohol viewpoint of those in the addiction treatment fields. EtherDoc (talk) 22:03, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Concerning alcohol causing chronic fatique (not chronic fatique syndrome), fair enough. Fatique has many causes and alcohol consumption should be at least explored as part of workup. EtherDoc (talk) 15:28, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

The majority of the content here is sourced to reviews of solid scientific research and only a small number of references are cited to addiction journals. Most are general medicine, neuroscience and psychiatry and such like references. There is very good reason why a lot of time is devoted to the long-term harm of alcohol, not least of all because there are so many harms. Examples. Alcohol is one of the leading causes of death according to the World Health Organisation and is more neurotoxic than all other other drugs of abuse. Large numbers of children are born with foetal alcohol syndrome, which is a cruel and devastating disorder and such children are outcasts their whole lives. Shall I go on? For I am only scratching the surface here describing mainstream wide recognised consequences of alcohol on society and large numbers of individuals. This article DOES mention the benefit of moderate alcohol intake on cardiovascular function. Do you think that the article should be 50 percent about the harms of alcohol and 50 percent about the benefits of alcohol? I am not sure what your ideal vision is for this article? Do you feel certain content is absent that should be included?--MrADHD | T@1k? 22:36, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Why did you choose the word 'disturbing' for this talk section title? That is a very strong word and implies you are very upset and troubled about this article.--MrADHD | T@1k? 22:44, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Disturbing because it often seems one sided and emotional. I prefer a scientific viewpoint. There are many many problems associated with alcohol abuse as described in this article. I have not removed any of these valid concerns. But there is an implied if not explicit suggestion in some contributions that the best course is to avoid alcohol completely. The literature in no way supports this except perhaps related to pregnancy. I have seen and taken care of many alcoholics and seen children with FAS (thankfully somewhat rare in the US currently) My background is in biochemistry, medicine-almost 30 years, and brain chemistry in particular. I simply want dispassionate contributions. BTW I have tried to improve the section on cancer since there is concern for alcohol promoting certain cancers. EtherDoc (talk) 22:46, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I want this article to be neutral too. Can you give us some specific actionable feedback? Do we omit some beneifits? Do we underemphasize them in the WP:LEAD? Do we overemphasize the downsides in the article? Might you be able to specificially point out what is wrong, in your opinion? Using templates per WP:CHEAT might help you, and many are available at Wikipedia:TC#Inline_with_article_text_5. Thanks! Biosthmors (talk) 00:39, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, truth is I have already fixed many of the concerns I had. And these changes apparently have been mostly kept. The words I wrote above were partly to explain the changes I made. I feel the article is reasonable at this point although some further organizing might be needed. Section on kidney stones might be labeled renal for example. The article now has a fair amount of info on benefits and deleterious effects.  :) EtherDoc (talk) 01:18, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Adding new New England Journal of Medicine study on significant benefit of Mediteranian diet. This is relevant since physicians randomized patients and included a RECOMMENDATION for daily wine consumption. OK, the diets were different (low fat diets are generally unhealthy) but this study is interesting precisely because subjects were instructed to drink daily.EtherDoc (talk) 00:47, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

This is still a biased, anti-alcohol article. Most of it consists of discussion about harmful effects of excess consumption of alcohol, but any substance whatsoever, including water, is harmful if consumed in excessive quantity. This is not specific to alcohol.

Of course there are people in our culture who damage their health by ingesting too much alcohol, just as there are people in our culture who damage their health by ingesting too many hamburgers or too much sugary soda. But the long-term health benefits of drinking small to moderate amounts (corresponding to a glass of wine per day) of alcohol are clear, documented, and well-established. Unfortunately there seems to be a section of the community which holds neo-Puritan attitudes, and looks for excuses to label anything enjoyable as harmful. Driven by their bias, they are overactive contributors to Wikipedia. Sayitclearly (talk) 07:26, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Either the article has changed a lot since February 2013 or some people's definition of "anti" differs considerably from mine. It almost had me starting again, were it not for my suspicion that the quantity involved would rapidly escalate back to historic levels. Which would not be regarded as a Good Thing. Mr Larrington (talk) 01:56, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

A new study released in July 2014 used the mendelian randomization design to avoid some problems posed by observational studies. Their findings were that gene loci which are strongly associated with a propensity to consume less alcohol are also associated with lower risk of coronary heart diseases. This suggests that the effect of moderate alcohol consumption on coronary heart diseases is probably confounded by genetic differences. The study also questions the association between higher HDL and coronary heart disease. Although this study is a primary study the clever study design, the converse findings in terms of moderate alcohol consumption on cardiovascular disease and the very large sample size (> 260'000 participants) would justify to at least mention this study in the Wikipedia article about the Long term effect of alcohol. Any comments? http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g4164 Mikeschaerer (talk) 19:57, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Longevity

OK we get it. C elegans is used in experiments of longevity. The actual gene sequence homology between worms and humans is not germane to this article. Suffice to say that C elegans is an accepted model of aging studies. Keep it concise! EtherDoc (talk) 20:02, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Younger and older cohorts

Alcohol seems to be overall beneficial starting from certain ages only, namely 35 for males and 45 for females. Before, there's a linear positive relationship between alcohol consumption and death risk. Also, gender seems to influence strongly the relationship between alcohol intake and ischaemic/emorrhagic stroke risk. http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh27-1/39-51.htm http://www.bmj.com/content/325/7357/191 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.68.240.61 (talk) 18:00, 9 February 2014 (UTC)