Sheesh, make up your minds already!

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Oskaar,

It sounded to me like CYA. They don’t want anyone or their family to sue when some fool drinks a case of cheap red wine everyday claiming it is good for his health and then dies when his liver explodes.

One day something is bad for you then the next it is good for you and then back to being bad for you. I think it is all good for you in moderation with a little exercise on the side.

Dan
 
Kaye M. Fillmore, the primary, didn't even do any real research. They "identified 54 published reports that examined the health effects of drinking." That means they reviewed someone elses work, found fault in it, and therefore dismissed it as incorrect.

Fillmore is an adjunct professor for UC San Francisco School of Nursing, and lectures on alcohol and drug use/misuse, so she's a little biased towards non-drinking.

Plus, the paper is titled "Does moderate drinking prevent heart disease? A meta-analysis and re-estimation of alcohol-caused mortality in Australia.". I don't see anywhere in the article linked that says "moderate drinking" or even the title of the paper. That's miss-direction/poor reporting if I ever saw it.

Here are some reports that are a bit more factual:
UC News publication:

http://www.ucnewswire.org/news_viewer.cfm?story_PK=5713&


"Fillmore cautioned that the study had not disproved the notion that light drinking was good for health, but "it reopens the debate about this matter.":

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-alcohol30mar30,0,2810101.story?coll=la-story-footer
 
Fillmore cautioned that the study had not disproved
the notion that light drinking was good for health,
but "it reopens the debate about this matter."

I wanted to highlight this quote also (already quoted by Lugh). The problem that's being pointed out in the studies is with the comparison groups and if true, it's a valid critique.

Even without this most recent questioning of the studies, I don't think any of the studies have yet conclusively proved the health benefits of light to moderate drinking. The evidence collected thus far seems to strongly indicate that this is true, but I don't think researchers are strongly saying that the question has been settled for good.