It’s not. Chronic alcohol use is much worse for your health. Binging can have significantly more deleterious effects when superimposed onto chronic alcohol use, or if combined with dangerous activities like driving. This is another reason the prior usda guidelines weren’t very useful.
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I won’t report you
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That is not what my sleep tracking data showed over several years. Even a single glass of wine noticeably worsened my sleep quality. Elevated resting heart rate, less hours of the night in deep or REM sleep, etc. These metrics look very similar when I drank a glass or two of wine often vs now when I infrequently drink a bottle (5 glasses) over 4-5 hours of an evening out, so long as I properly hydrate throughout the evening. In the latter scenario my sleep is disrupted by bathroom breaks, but overall quality is not worse than when I used to drink a glass or two more frequently. The upside is there are far more nights now without any alcohol where my sleep quality is excellent.
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I sure do remember that one!
Agree
First of all define big business - how about Walmart? 24% of their spend is SNAP (previously known as food stamps). You ever been in line at Walmart and see a mom buy like 20 boxes of mac and cheese with food stamps? Is that a healthy food choice? I don’t think so. My guess is it is easier for Walmart to sell Mac and Cheese - essentially a non perishable item than to sell fresh vegetables. But maybe you are correct and there is a way this helps Walmart which is the largest grocery retailer in the United States. I just don’t see how.
Steak and Wine. Can’t wait to relive my old happy days 
Making implications, counselor?? 
Good red wine! Of course, there probably is some association with red meat and colon cancer! Whatever…
Michael,
bringing this back up and you probably have addressed it elsewhere but just figured I’d ask it here.
I know that it is clear that alcohol consumption increases the risk of breast cancer in women. Do you have any absolute numbers at this point? I know that the evidence is clear, but what about the magnitude?
If one in 100,000 are at risk normally, and moderate drinking puts that at 1.5 in 100,000, that is a 50% increase in risk, but the absolute risk is still pretty minimal.
Just trying to get clarity on this.
Thank you!
Estimates are around 7-10% for light drinking, 15-30% for moderate, >50% far heavy.
Lifetime risk of breast cancer for all comers is about 13% but varies widely due to genetics, with women with family history and genetic syndrome having far higher risk, approaching 100% for women with syndromes like BRCA 1-2 or p53 mutations, or HNPCC.
Thank you. So are you saying that women have a 13 in 100 person chance of getting breast cancer? If not, how many women out of 100 or 1000 or 100,000 will get breast cancer, not taking your account additional risks as has been discussed?
Among all comers, there is a 13% risk of breast cancer, however; that’s a population based number. Women could have lower or higher risk of breast cancer depending on genetics and other risk factors. It’s not a particular rare disease, which is why the risk of alcohol actually significantly increases the risk of mortality in women. Almost all of the increase in mortality is related to female breast cancer. Head and neck cancer and other cancers are much rarer, so even though there are increases in risk, they don’t really cause significant increases in overall mortality.
So you are saying that 13 out of 100 women will get breast cancer in their lifetime? I didn’t realize it was that high.
And if heavy drinking leads to a 50% increase in that, that means that your risk is about 20 and 100, right?
Just trying to understand the absolute numbers.
Yes approximately 1 in 8 women get breast cancer in their lifetime. A 50% increase in risk would increase it to 18-20% if your risk was 13% however, as I said, that’s a population based risk, not an individual risk. Each woman’s individual risk is different and depends on many factors. There are ways to calculate it, such as the Tyler-Cuzick risk score. You can check that out here.
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Thank you for the clarification. I will look at that and get back to you if I have any further questions.
Again, just trying to understand things as completely as possible.
cheers