A glass of wine is equivalent to 3 cigarettes? Is this correct?

[WalkingZed]

In terms of the damage they do?

AIBU for not thinking or knowing this?

I don't drink every night maybe a glass of red wine 4 nights throughout the course of the week but never more than 2 glasses.

A colleague says drinking and smoking are on a par!

I genuinely didn't think this.

AIBU -and the only one who thought my glass of red was a great after a hard day!!--

I'm told cigarettes are good for deterring leeches. However, my current lifestyle doesn't make this a particularly useful trait. I'll have to carry on not smoking and just hope the leeches don't invade any time soon.

As for the health equivalence of wine to cigarettes, couldn't tell you, but IMO the wine smells a whole lot nicer.

She's the chief medical officer. It isn't her job to be the life and souk of the party. Presumably people would rather live in blissful ignorance until the day they choose to blame the government for withholding the facts?

Ego do youmean people who are sober because of previous addictions?

Blimey Dame Sally sounds like fun... wait one moment while I add her to my annual summer party list :)

That's true Stealthpolarbear.... still bear a grudge against whichever chief medical officer banned medised though. Sometimes it was the only way for an ill and exahusted child to get relief and sleep

Meh i'll keep smoking, you keep drinking. Can we have a party?

Oh dear, I smoke and drink lots of wine. I guess I'm doomed.

My FIL just died from liver cancer caused by alcohol. The last 5 years of his life were wrecked by alcohol-related diabetes and heart disease.

Party on everyone.

The thing is Beaky, repeatedly giving very stark warnings about multiple drinks and foodstuffs, warning darkly that even moderation is harmful is not good Public Health strategy.

Alcohol isn't beneficial to health, but there is no way of quantifying it because everyone reacts differently to alcohol. The way your body metabolises alcohol depends on many factors - genes, enzymes, body composition, sex, body size, height, etc.
The studies that show small amounts of alcohol are beneficial over no alcohol are flawed. They do not take into account that people who don't drink at all may have other socioeconomic and health factors which prevent them from drinking and also lead to ill health.
Well that is what I learnt in my epidemiology lectures.

Thanks ego, sorry if I wasn't being clear I was asking about the lifestyle reasons for not drinking. ..bit think I get it now!

Alcohol is a carcinogen. Does this come as a surprise to anyone?

Out of curiosity Beaky how much did your FIL drink daily?

BTW for hot drinks - they mean scalding hot over 70C. So just let your drinks cool to a pleasant temperature (and I think if you use milk that cools it enough) and you should be fine!

This refers to averages at the population level, obviously it can't be the case that for any given individual we can say for sure that a glass of wine will be as detrimental to health as 3 cigarettes

The anthrocyanins in red wine have health benefits but alcohol has no health benefits and anthrocyanins are present in many other foods, coffee, dark chocolate, fruit and veg

mummytime I know it means red hot, but that's exactly how I drink my hot drinks! Can't be doing with warm, like it straight out the kettle. I have been called asbestos gob more than once

Plus it's over 65c not 70

and there is the 'french paradox' which only means that their overall diet is so healthy and their health system so good that the alkohol doesn't do as much damage.

"Do as I do when I reach for my glass of wine - think 'Do I want the glass of wine or do I want to raise my own risk of breast cancer?' she told MPs. “I take a decision each time I have a glass.”

It's a bit of a shame she misspoke here, as the choice as she presents it - wine or cancer - is a pretty easy one! Unfortunately there must be a missing not here, or she wanted 'lower' for 'raise'.

I do think it's unfair to criticise her for being 'joyless', though. It's her job to highlight the risks; it's our own individual job to decide how much risk we want to take on. A life spent obsessively avoiding all possible cancer triggers would be miserable, so most of us try and strike a balance that feels ok to us.

I don't think you can compare the two at this minimal level. On a larger scale alcohol does far more damage - to society. Now that cigarettes have been banned in public places smokers are really only damaging their own health. Heavy drinkers (and I'm not talking one glass a night) cause a lot more damage to others. You only need to take a trip to the local hospital or police station on a Friday or Saturday night to see that. People still vastly underestimate the damage alcohol does in this sense.

egosum I don't drink (not teetotal, I just have gone off it completely since having hyperemesis in pregnancy so I never drank after getting pregnant) so it's not something I'd like to be true ;)

By light drinking I mean very light - my dh for example probably has one or two drinks a month if he goes out with friends. I wouldn't count, say, a drink a day as light drinking. I get what you mean though, there is a lot of denial over what light drinking is. I know at least one high functioning professional getting through a bottle a day who would insist they didn't have an issue.

And yes, it's very, very difficult to design studies. The best data we have shows that teetotallers are actually slightly more likely to have certain health issues than very light drinkers. The problem is, why is that, is ot causal or is it an artefact or a confounding issue ? as an example, nuns tend not to drink so their incidence of alcohol induced breast cancer would be expected to be lower. But they also don't have children so their risk is actually higher. Teetotallers as a population could include those who abstained because they'd previously had issues. Or perhaps there's a big proportion of those who don't drink for religious reasons. Such as Muslims from Pakistan/ south East Asians - who have a higher diabetes risk. Epidemiology is really challenging.

Anyway my point was that while almost all substances are toxic in excess, some are toxic in minute amounts and some aren't. You don't want to ingest any dioxin at all but one glass of wine won't permanently damage you.

On an individual level we all metabolise alcohol differently too. I get squiffy from one or two drinks.

I think the chief medical officer has a duty to present the facts as they are. Everyone still has the right to drink and it's then an informed choice.

I'm pretty sure I remember reading that it turned out a/the study comparing the health outcomes (for teetotal people and moderate drinkers) had included sober alcoholics in the teetotal group.

In my own experience of family and friends, there doesn't seem to be any correlation between life expectancy and lifestyle. Hardly an extensive medical research report I know but I just think, just enjoy yourself.