WSJ: American Runners Are Faster Than Ever. Is It Because They’ve Stopped Drinking?

Tyrone ReXXXing wrote:

800 dude wrote:

It's hard to believe now, but twenty years ago, moderate drinking was actually considered healthier than abstinence. (It's now understood that moderate social drinking is highly correlated with socioeconomic status, which made earlier observational studies unreliable.).

It's not hard to believe, because up until very, very recently, virtually every large scale epidemiological study showed that moderate drinkers outlived abstainers.

Now, yes, there has been a recent spate of studies showing that there were some confounding factors not controlled for in those studies[ which will be true for all epidemiological studies]. Socioeconomic status was always controlled for but maybe not perfectly. More, they have realized that many abstainers didn't drink due to various health reasons.

However, the case is certainly not closed shut as you and many make it out to seem. These are still not gold standard, double blind, placebo controlled studies. Therefore they are certainly imperfect. And furthermore, some of these studies recently grabbing headlines absolutely exaggerated their results [ and/or the media did]. In many of the studies, there was very little difference between moderate drinkers longevity and abstainers, even when all of the newly controlled factors were plugged in. Some still showed potential heart health benefits.

One study out of mass general last year found direct link/ pathway to The potential heart health benefits of alcohol where alcohol reduces stress via the brain. This seem especially pronounced in those with higher levels of anxiety and and stress.

Link:www.massgeneral.org/news/press-release...

Lastly, the long-awaited new US dietary guidelines is still going to say that moderate drinkers outlive abstainers and that there are heart health benefits to moderate drinking.

"the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released a report that was commissioned to inform the 2025 Dietary Guidelines. It found that, compared to people who never drank, moderate drinkers had lower all-cause mortality and a lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease."

[ now, yes, this is a bit controversial. As there are accusations of the authors being funded by alcohol industry. However.... They rely on some fairly strong studies to come to their conclusions].

Cheers! 🍻

What am I doing wrong wrote:

Tyrone ReXXXing wrote:

It's not hard to believe, because up until very, very recently, virtually every large scale epidemiological study showed that moderate drinkers outlived abstainers.

Now, yes, there has been a recent spate of studies showing that there were some confounding factors not controlled for in those studies[ which will be true for all epidemiological studies]. Socioeconomic status was always controlled for but maybe not perfectly. More, they have realized that many abstainers didn't drink due to various health reasons.

However, the case is certainly not closed shut as you and many make it out to seem. These are still not gold standard, double blind, placebo controlled studies. Therefore they are certainly imperfect. And furthermore, some of these studies recently grabbing headlines absolutely exaggerated their results [ and/or the media did]. In many of the studies, there was very little difference between moderate drinkers longevity and abstainers, even when all of the newly controlled factors were plugged in. Some still showed potential heart health benefits.

One study out of mass general last year found direct link/ pathway to The potential heart health benefits of alcohol where alcohol reduces stress via the brain. This seem especially pronounced in those with higher levels of anxiety and and stress.

Link:www.massgeneral.org/news/press-release...

Lastly, the long-awaited new US dietary guidelines is still going to say that moderate drinkers outlive abstainers and that there are heart health benefits to moderate drinking.

"the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released a report that was commissioned to inform the 2025 Dietary Guidelines. It found that, compared to people who never drank, moderate drinkers had lower all-cause mortality and a lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease."

[ now, yes, this is a bit controversial. As there are accusations of the authors being funded by alcohol industry. However.... They rely on some fairly strong studies to come to their conclusions].

Cheers! 🍻

One thing that I would ponder- are moderate drinkers more likely to be more social? There does seem to be a big link between living longer and being more social.

moorest wrote:

Tyrone ReXXXing wrote:

It's not hard to believe, because up until very, very recently, virtually every large scale epidemiological study showed that moderate drinkers outlived abstainers.

Now, yes, there has been a recent spate of studies showing that there were some confounding factors not controlled for in those studies[ which will be true for all epidemiological studies]. Socioeconomic status was always controlled for but maybe not perfectly. More, they have realized that many abstainers didn't drink due to various health reasons.

However, the case is certainly not closed shut as you and many make it out to seem. These are still not gold standard, double blind, placebo controlled studies. Therefore they are certainly imperfect. And furthermore, some of these studies recently grabbing headlines absolutely exaggerated their results [ and/or the media did]. In many of the studies, there was very little difference between moderate drinkers longevity and abstainers, even when all of the newly controlled factors were plugged in. Some still showed potential heart health benefits.

One study out of mass general last year found direct link/ pathway to The potential heart health benefits of alcohol where alcohol reduces stress via the brain. This seem especially pronounced in those with higher levels of anxiety and and stress.

Link:www.massgeneral.org/news/press-release...

Lastly, the long-awaited new US dietary guidelines is still going to say that moderate drinkers outlive abstainers and that there are heart health benefits to moderate drinking.

"the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released a report that was commissioned to inform the 2025 Dietary Guidelines. It found that, compared to people who never drank, moderate drinkers had lower all-cause mortality and a lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease."

[ now, yes, this is a bit controversial. As there are accusations of the authors being funded by alcohol industry. However.... They rely on some fairly strong studies to come to their conclusions].

Cheers! 🍻

I'm a cancer epidemiologist who is close to the work happening on this topic. And, honestly, the ground truth behind the debate is even simpler. It's not confounding variables that are the issue; it's how to treat non-drinkers. If non-drinkers are your reference group, then increasing alcohol consumption appears healthy, to a point. If light drinkers are your reference group, then increasing alcohol consumption (further) looks unhealthy. I've examined this in many different cohorts, each with tens or hundreds of thousands of participants. The results consistently and robustly vary by choice of reference group. Consequently, proponents of each message can choose the results they want just by switching the reference group.

Unfortunately, there is no solid science as to what the reference group should be. While many argue that non-drinkers are "weird", and that the group likely contains many former alcoholics (which legitimately would pose analytical concerns), there is no mathematically rigorous formulation behind the idea of "weird", nor are there solid estimates of the degree of bias induced by including small numbers of former alcoholics in the reference group. Moreover, studies that use extremely light drinkers as the reference group, e.g. 1 drink per month, tend to show that those with a little more drinking (e.g. 1 drink/day) have lower mortality. This suggests the effect is not totally explainable by bias from using non-drinkers as a reference group.

The net result, frankly, is a lot of wasted time in the epidemiologic community. Arriving at the correct answer--given how small these effects are--is likely beyond the limits of precision of the epidemiologic method. It will take decades to agree on this, but eventually researchers will have to lead a randomized study to get a definite answer.

bhah wrote:

rojo wrote:

This might explain why I sucked back in the day. A very interesting article.

Link:www.wsj.com/sports/world-athletics-cha...

That being said, is this treally true.

The "vast majoriy" of runners don't drink. Or is he referring to getting hammered immediately after the 5th avenue mile.

I will say that when my brother and Matt Downin were living in DC and enjoying the night life, they weren't very good. They both moved away and presumably stopped drinking as much and got A LOT better. Downin won USAs the year Webb ran 3:53.

But I'm supposed to believe drinking is huge, but taking a bunch of edibles has no impact. Here is the last line of the article;

Drug-testing rules ban cannabis use only during competition. So partaking with ample time between races is allowed.

“I’m one of those,” Engels said. “I used to drink and I don’t really like to anymore. I’d rather get high.”

Interesting this: Fisher “sleeps 9 to 10 hours each night and takes a 90-minute nap.”

Thats 11 hours a day of sleep.

rojo wrote:

This might explain why I sucked back in the day. A very interesting article.

Link:www.wsj.com/sports/world-athletics-cha...

That being said, is this treally true.

Rachel Bachman wrote:

“In the past, only a small minority [of runners] abstained,” Willis wrote. “Now it’s the vast majority.”

The "vast majoriy" of runners don't drink? Or is he referring to getting hammered immediately after the 5th avenue mile.

I will say that when my brother and Matt Downin were living in DC and enjoying the night life, they weren't very good. They both moved away and presumably stopped drinking as much and got A LOT better. Downin won USAs the year Webb ran 3:53.

But I'm supposed to believe drinking is huge, but taking a bunch of edibles has no impact. Here is the last line of the article;

Drug-testing rules ban cannabis use only during competition. So partaking with ample time between races is allowed.

“I’m one of those,” Engels said. “I used to drink and I don’t really like to anymore. I’d rather get high.”

moorest wrote:

Tyrone ReXXXing wrote:

It's not hard to believe, because up until very, very recently, virtually every large scale epidemiological study showed that moderate drinkers outlived abstainers.

Now, yes, there has been a recent spate of studies showing that there were some confounding factors not controlled for in those studies[ which will be true for all epidemiological studies]. Socioeconomic status was always controlled for but maybe not perfectly. More, they have realized that many abstainers didn't drink due to various health reasons.

However, the case is certainly not closed shut as you and many make it out to seem. These are still not gold standard, double blind, placebo controlled studies. Therefore they are certainly imperfect. And furthermore, some of these studies recently grabbing headlines absolutely exaggerated their results [ and/or the media did]. In many of the studies, there was very little difference between moderate drinkers longevity and abstainers, even when all of the newly controlled factors were plugged in. Some still showed potential heart health benefits.

One study out of mass general last year found direct link/ pathway to The potential heart health benefits of alcohol where alcohol reduces stress via the brain. This seem especially pronounced in those with higher levels of anxiety and and stress.

Link:www.massgeneral.org/news/press-release...

Lastly, the long-awaited new US dietary guidelines is still going to say that moderate drinkers outlive abstainers and that there are heart health benefits to moderate drinking.

"the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released a report that was commissioned to inform the 2025 Dietary Guidelines. It found that, compared to people who never drank, moderate drinkers had lower all-cause mortality and a lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease."

[ now, yes, this is a bit controversial. As there are accusations of the authors being funded by alcohol industry. However.... They rely on some fairly strong studies to come to their conclusions].

Cheers! 🍻

I'm a cancer epidemiologist who is close to the work happening on this topic. And, honestly, the ground truth behind the debate is even simpler. It's not confounding variables that are the issue; it's how to treat non-drinkers. If non-drinkers are your reference group, then increasing alcohol consumption appears healthy, to a point. If light drinkers are your reference group, then increasing alcohol consumption (further) looks unhealthy. I've examined this in many different cohorts, each with tens or hundreds of thousands of participants. The results consistently and robustly vary by choice of reference group. Consequently, proponents of each message can choose the results they want just by switching the reference group.

Unfortunately, there is no solid science as to what the reference group should be. While many argue that non-drinkers are "weird", and that the group likely contains many former alcoholics (which legitimately would pose analytical concerns), there is no mathematically rigorous formulation behind the idea of "weird", nor are there solid estimates of the degree of bias induced by including small numbers of former alcoholics in the reference group. Moreover, studies that use extremely light drinkers as the reference group, e.g. 1 drink per month, tend to show that those with a little more drinking (e.g. 1 drink/day) have lower mortality. This suggests the effect is not totally explainable by bias from using non-drinkers as a reference group.

The net result, frankly, is a lot of wasted time in the epidemiologic community. Arriving at the correct answer--given how small these effects are--is likely beyond the limits of precision of the epidemiologic method. It will take decades to agree on this, but eventually researchers will have to lead a randomized study to get a definite answer.

Tyrone ReXXXing wrote:

moorest wrote:

This is probably the right answer. And there's an argument to be made that alcohol causes people to be more social--so it may not even be confounding, as epidemiologists typically define it. But then there are the massive downsides to alcohol. A truly difficult topic.

Yes, recently, the surgeon general said loneliness is more dangerous than smoking!

I think the bottom line is that people now saying that even very moderate levels of drinking [ let's say for men- 8-12 drinks a week with no binge drinking( 5 or more in one outing)] is extremely toxic and poison for you and a major health risk...... Are definitely exaggerating based on all of the evidence. It may be a small health risk or it may not be one at all. Also, people susceptible to heart disease or cancer could have different outcomes with the same low to moderate level of drinking. [ because of Potentially small heart benefits, but potentially increased cancer risk]