<
https://slate.com/technology/2023/04/alcohol-wine-drinking-healthy-dangerous-study.html>
"In 1991 an academic debate spilled out of ivory towers and into the popular
imagination. That year, Serge Renaud, a celebrated and charismatic alcohol
researcher at the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research—who
also hailed from a winemaking family in Bordeaux—made a fateful appearance on
60 Minutes. Asked why the French had lower rates of cardiovascular disease
than Americans did, even though people in both countries consumed high-fat
diets, Renaud replied, without missing a beat, “The consumption of alcohol.”
Renaud suspected that the so-called French paradox could be explained by the
red wine at French dinner tables.
The French paradox quickly found a receptive audience. The day after the
episode aired, according to an account in the food magazine the
Valley Table,
all U.S. airlines ran out of red wine. For the next month, red wine sales in
the U.S. spiked by 44 percent. When the show was re-aired in 1992, sales spiked
again, by 49 percent, and stayed elevated for years. Wine companies quickly
adorned their bottles with neck tags extolling the product’s health benefits,
which were backed up by the research that Renaud had been relying on when he
made his off-the-cuff claim, and the dozens of studies that followed.
By 1995, the U.S. dietary guidelines had removed language that alcohol had “no
net benefit.” Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and
public health at New York University, was involved in drafting those
guidelines. “The evidence in the mid-’90s seemed incontrovertible, whether you
liked it or not. And boy, none of the people who were concerned about the
effects of alcohol on society liked that research. But they couldn’t find
anything wrong with it at the time. And so, there it was; it had to be dealt
with. And it got into the dietary guidelines.”
The press ran with it. A
New York Times front-page headline announced, “In an
About-Face, U.S. Says Alcohol Has Health Benefits.” The assistant secretary of
health said at the time, “In my personal view, wine with meals in moderation is
beneficial. There was a significant bias in the past against drinking. To move
from antialcohol to health benefits is a big change.”
Physicians were also changing their tunes. One influential alcohol researcher,
R. Curtis Ellison—who made a cameo on that infamous
60 Minutes episode about
the French paradox—wrote in
Wine Spectator in 1998, “You should consume
alcohol on a regular basis, perhaps daily. Some might even say that it is
dangerous to go more than 24 hours without a drink.”
The results live in all of our heads: There’s nothing wrong with a glass of
wine with dinner every night, right? After all, years of studies have suggested
that small amounts of alcohol can favorably tweak cholesterol levels, keeping
arteries clear of gunk and reducing coronary heart disease. Moderate alcohol
use has been endorsed by many doctors and public health officials for years.
We’ve all seen the
Times headlines.
Now, 25 years later, you’re likely feeling a fair bit of whiplash. According to
new guidelines released in recent months by the World Health Organization, the
World Heart Federation, and the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and
Addiction, the safest level of drinking is—brace yourself—not a single drop."
Via
Fix the News:
<
https://fixthenews.com/good-news-hepatitis-china-domestic-violence-australia-fire-thailand/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
