My family in my generation and in the one following mine have been plagued by alcoholism at a rate that our parent's generation didn't have. My mother didn't drink at all and my father did very rarely in his later life, both of them had witnessed alcoholism in their parents generation and, so, didn't drink. I have every confidence that the alcoholism in my generation is heavily influenced by the promotion of drinking in movies, TV shows, books, etc. the greatly increased marketing of alcohol, thanks in no small part to that same Supreme Court whose every action seems to be the most mixed of blessings, and on behalf of the "civil liberties" industry that gets money from those who benefit from their legal briefs, both in the alcohol industry, the advertising industry and other media that profit from things like product placement.
Having now buried two siblings who died of horrific and advanced alcoholism, the symptoms of which you would have to see to believe, seeing members of the next generation who I fear will repeat that (not to mention the two who have become addicted to opiates) I have been reading a lot about alcoholism. As I mentioned I recently have read and re-read (and am now really studying) the book by the Harold Johnson, Firewater: How Alcohol Is Killing My People (And Yours) a book published by the University of Regina press and which has both the blessings of an index and a healthy range of citations and suggestions for further reading. It is a book that should be seriously read by a lot more people than it has been read by.
My focus has been on alcoholism which Harold Johnson has convinced me should not be considered in terms of a disease model as that model has not seemed to help. I hadn't, until I read his book, even much considered the health consequences of normal levels of alcohol consumption, about the possible health effects of drinking alcohol when no one would consider calling the drinker an alcoholic or even a drunk (you can kill yourself and other people the first time you drink if you get drunk and get in an accident while driving a car or have some other accident). There are, in fact, a large range of diseases that are associated with the toxic effects of alcohol. Here is a short summary from a reviewed study by The National Institute of Health.
Evidence of a causal impact of average volume of alcohol consumption was found for the following major diseases: tuberculosis, mouth, nasopharynx, other pharynx and oropharynx cancer, oesophageal cancer, colon and rectum cancer, liver cancer, female breast cancer, diabetes mellitus, alcohol use disorders, unipolar depressive disorders, epilepsy, hypertensive heart disease, ischaemic heart disease (IHD), ischaemic and haemorrhagic stroke, conduction disorders and other dysrhythmias, lower respiratory infections (pneumonia), cirrhosis of the liver, preterm birth complications and fetal alcohol syndrome. Dose-response relationships could be quantified for all disease categories except for depressive disorders, with the relative risk increasing with increased level of alcohol consumption for most diseases. Both average volume and drinking pattern were linked causally to IHD, fetal alcohol syndrome and unintentional and intentional injuries. For IHD, ischaemic stroke and diabetes mellitus beneficial effects were observed for patterns of light to moderate drinking without heavy drinking occasions (as defined by 60+ g pure alcohol per day). For several disease and injury categories, the effects were stronger on mortality compared to morbidity. There was insufficient evidence to establish whether quality of alcohol had a major impact on disease burden.
CONCLUSIONS:
Overall, these findings indicate that alcohol impacts many disease outcomes causally, both chronic and acute, and injuries. In addition, a pattern of heavy episodic drinking increases risk for some disease and all injury outcomes. Future studies need to address a number of methodological issues, especially the differential role of average volume versus drinking pattern, in order to obtain more accurate risk estimates and to understand more clearly the nature of alcohol-disease relationships.
Think about this the next time you read or hear about a study (I agree with Mr. Johnson that it's reasonable to suspect issued by those in the pay of the alcohol industry) about the supposed health effect of moderate, what this study probably means by "average" alcohol consumption. Even if the "disease burden" on the general population can be disappeared by the magic of statistical analysis, for those whose disease shows up in the studies, it's a major impact.
Most people don't become alcoholics when they drink, not even when they drink regularly, but you don't have to become an alcoholic for drinking to have a very real and very major health impact. You don't even have to get tipsy and have an accident for that to be the case.
I am still going over the book and its related citations and will probably write a lot about this in the coming weeks and months, I just wanted to post this now.
One of the more persistent annoyances of the intertoobs is the pernicious belief that, if someone has a contrary opinion to yours, they want to obliterate yours and make theirs the law of the land.
ReplyDeleteThis says a lot about most people, much of it disturbing (but completely in-line with traditional Xian doctrines on sin, especially if you, as I do, understand the roots of sin as originating in selfishness, a condition we have to struggle mightily, and ceaselessly, to overcome.).
What I find amazing is how such people figure if you say something is bad for you it means you have to make it a criminal offense, they can't conceive of opposing something on any other basis. Such is the atheist, materialist range of thought. I know who this guy is. What's really funny, though, is that he figures he's a stalwart supporter of science, even though if he doesn't like what science reveals, he's as ready to reject it as a FOX zombie.
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