My understanding is there are no health benefits at any dose. There are social and comfort benefits, and that might be worth it, but there's no health benefits.
Also dose does not always make the poison. I did chemotherapy, there's no safe dose of chemotherapy. Or, at least, my chemotherapy. Yes it was worth it, but I will also have lifelong effects from it. There's no safe amount of heavy metals to infuse into people's blood. It's, quite literally, poison, cytotoxic, it's singular purpose is to kill living cells. Yes your body can rebound, but the DNA damage, vascular damage, pulmonary damage, is permanent.
Anyway, that doesn't mean you can't drink. But my perspective has, naturally, shifted. Now I view the comfort of alcohol as not a benefit, but a crutch. How many skills could I have learned over the years if I did not drink, and sat in discomfort? How behind am I now? Turns out very behind, and I have to build those skills now. Or become a hermit, but I don't want to do that. Or just say fuck it and drink, but at this point my DNA is so damaged I'll get cancer again. So discomfort it is, and hopefully I build those skills over enough time.
Agreed - it's all in the dose and the response. Not even mentioning the selection pressure for us to adapt to at least small amounts of alcohol in our diet, which has been present in basic things such as fermented fruits that we had to eat in our ancestral environment.
Fair, but it depends on how far you want to go down the memory lane. It's not unheard of that Greeks would live until they're 60 or 70yo. That's about 2500 years ago. Not as much as 100s of thousands of years ago, but the selection pressure is still present, and who knows how far back it might have gone.
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Dose makes the poison. And some substances are beneficial at low doses and harmful at high doses.
Do you foreswear aspirin?
My understanding is there are no health benefits at any dose. There are social and comfort benefits, and that might be worth it, but there's no health benefits.
Also dose does not always make the poison. I did chemotherapy, there's no safe dose of chemotherapy. Or, at least, my chemotherapy. Yes it was worth it, but I will also have lifelong effects from it. There's no safe amount of heavy metals to infuse into people's blood. It's, quite literally, poison, cytotoxic, it's singular purpose is to kill living cells. Yes your body can rebound, but the DNA damage, vascular damage, pulmonary damage, is permanent.
Anyway, that doesn't mean you can't drink. But my perspective has, naturally, shifted. Now I view the comfort of alcohol as not a benefit, but a crutch. How many skills could I have learned over the years if I did not drink, and sat in discomfort? How behind am I now? Turns out very behind, and I have to build those skills now. Or become a hermit, but I don't want to do that. Or just say fuck it and drink, but at this point my DNA is so damaged I'll get cancer again. So discomfort it is, and hopefully I build those skills over enough time.
Agreed - it's all in the dose and the response. Not even mentioning the selection pressure for us to adapt to at least small amounts of alcohol in our diet, which has been present in basic things such as fermented fruits that we had to eat in our ancestral environment.
There is no safe dose of alcohol for the brain. Our ancestral environment didn't require us to live past the age of 30.
Fair, but it depends on how far you want to go down the memory lane. It's not unheard of that Greeks would live until they're 60 or 70yo. That's about 2500 years ago. Not as much as 100s of thousands of years ago, but the selection pressure is still present, and who knows how far back it might have gone.
Even low to moderate doses of alcoholic drinks are known to be harmful to the brain and to cognition. There is no safe dose of alcohol for the brain.