alcohol

I've been waiting for this research report for a while. The benefits of alcohol are vastly overrated. Alcohol and fructose are just too similar. They look similar. They are chemically similar. And they are processed in the body using almost identical biochemical steps. If fructose is so bad for you how can alcohol be good? Answer: It isn't.

The primary correlation reported in the press is that alcohol consumption is inversely related to coronary heart disease. Drink more, have less heart attacks. 

The study linked above is a meta-analysis (I generally like these although they aren't technically clinical studies) of 34 studies of men and women totaling about one-million people and one-hundred-thousand deaths. All the studies were observational (so we're not exactly talking science here).

It does show that there is a correlation as suggested up to 4 drinks per day for men and 2 drinks per day for women. But the maximum protection afforded by these drinks is still smaller than the confidence interval. Suggesting it may not be real and there is no benefit. And any binge drinking has no benefit.

Furthermore this only seems to hold for men over 34 and women over 54 years old. Below that the correlation is proportionally related not inversely.

And while it may reduce cardiovascular disease it does seem to increase cancers, cirrhosis (no surprise) and death from accidents (don't drink and drive, user Uber).