WEBVTT
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Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Versus
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from Gimlet.
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We are back for a new season. It's good to
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be here. We missed you.
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And we're kicking off the season by pitting facts against
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old fashions.
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Today, alcohol. Is it good for you or not? For decades,
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we've been hearing that drinking a glass or two is
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practically a health food.
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There is groundbreaking new research on the benefits of drinking
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alcohol moderately.
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Many studies have shown that drinking a moderate amount of
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red wine can help the fight against heart disease, Alzheimer's
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and some cancers. One to two glasses of something a day,
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that might actually be pretty good for you.
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But while many of us were drinking up this news,
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things recently changed. If you turned on the telly last year,
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you were hearing a very different story.
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We hate to be the ones to break some sobering
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news to you, but a major new study says no
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amount of alcohol is good for your overall health.
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So what's going on? Is science now saying boo to booze?
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Even that one glass of wine at dinner does more
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harm than good.
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No amount of alcohol is good for you, not even
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a little bit.
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Is this thing that we love doing after a stressful
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day of work really killing us? Well, it turns out
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that what we thought was a fairly simple question took
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us down this rabbit hole where things just got curiouser
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and curiouser and it became almost impossible to know what
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to think. We even surveyed around 50 experts about their
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thoughts on alcohol and they couldn't give us a clear
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answer either.
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So, might as well give up, right? Never. Here at Science.
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Versus, there's no question too confusing, no research quagmire too sticky.
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Strap on your beer goggles.
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And get yourself ready for a peer-reviewed adventure to find
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out once and for all, is alcohol good for us
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or not? When it comes to alcohol, there are lots
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of opinions. But then there's science. Science vs Alcohol is
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coming up just after the break.
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Cheers! Hey, it's Wendy from Science Versus, and I want
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to tell you about a podcast that I love, Science Friday.
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They cover all sorts of amazing things in the weird
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and wonderful world of science, from how concussions affect our
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brain to the inner secrets of a snake with a
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spider on its tale. It's a lot of news that
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you can use and some that you can't, but you're
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going to love anyway.
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It's hosted by Ira Flato and Flora Lichtman.
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Who is an old friend of the show and loves
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a pun as much as we do. Science Friday is
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on every day wherever you get your podcasts.
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Welcome back. Today we are finding out if that cheeky
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beer is killing us. We all know that drinking a lot,
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like four drinks a day, can be bad for us.
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It increases our risk for all kinds of diseases, like
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liver disease.
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And it makes it more.
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Likely that we'll get into serious accidents. But where it's
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confusing is when it comes to drinking in moderation. You know,
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cracking open a cold one or two. Because it seems
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like every day we hear something different.
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Some say it's good for you, some say it's bad
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for you, and all I want to know is can
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I have a beer?
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To start our journey in answering this question, we wanted
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to take you to a time where basically no one
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was seriously arguing that alcohol was good for you.
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Alcohol is a violent narcotic, almost as if its aim
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in life was to transform man back into an animal.
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This is a PSA from 1952. All it takes is
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five drops of alcohol for every thousand drops of blood, and, brother,
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you're a dead duck.
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Things changed for alcohol in the 1970s, though. That was
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when a very curious study came out showing that alcohol
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might actually be good for you. It found that people
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who drank had far fewer heart attacks than those who
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didn't drink, and it caused a huge stir. Heart disease
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kills hundreds of thousands of Americans each year.
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It's the biggest killer around.
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And if this finding was true, no longer were drinkers
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dead ducks, but they might be majestic eagles soaring to health.
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Other scientists immediately bellied up to the bar and wanted
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to find out, could.
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This be true? Could alcohol really be good for you?
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I was surprised that there was something... That seems so simplistic.
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It really was, gee, just really having a couple glasses
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of wine with dinner can have that strong of an impact.
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Eric Rimm is a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard,
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and one of his first big studies was checking to
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see if that 1970s paper was right.
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After all, the idea that alcohol could help your heart?
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It sounded too good to be true.
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Yeah, I think people were skeptical. Anecdotally, Alcohol was bad.
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People who showed up in hospitals had too much, and
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therefore if too much was bad, then a moderate amount
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was bad too.
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So in the 1980s, Eric tried to get to the
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bottom of the glass. He got more than 40,000 men
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to tell him how much they drank, their medical history,
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and he also asked the men what they ate to
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see if maybe it wasn't the alcohol, but something the
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drinkers happened to be eating that was protecting their heart.
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Maybe we can sift out, is it the alcohol or
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is it the diet? So we had four pages where
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we asked them about their diet. And it was a
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list of about 130 foods. So you'd go through and
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tell us how many sweet potatoes you ate on average
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over the last year, how much red meat you ate.
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To make sure that Eric could trust that people were
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accurately filling out his survey... Eric's team later made sure
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that what people said they ate lined up with what
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was actually in their bodies. So they'd look for specific
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chemicals found in certain foods.
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So if you eat a lot of carrots, that means
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you should have a lot of beta-carotene in your blood.
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And sure enough, people that reported more carrots had much
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higher levels of beta-carotene. And people that reported more tuna
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had more mercury in their toenails, which we'd expect because
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there's mercury in tuna.
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So You actually went and measured the mercury in people's
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toenails to make sure that they were reporting their tuna
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consumption correctly?
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Yeah. We have one of the world's largest collections of toenails. Yeah,
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I don't like to brag about that, but that comes
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up at parties.
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Yeah, sounds like a real rager. Okay, back to Eric's
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first study. So as the late 1980s were rolling into
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the 90s, Eric starts plugging all this info into about
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what people drank and ate and whether they got a
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heart attack into a computer, which was very fancy for
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the time.
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You hit the enter key. In this case, you know,
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I had to wait eight hours for it to churn
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through because the computers were pretty slow at that time.
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And when the results popped up, Eric found that alcohol
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really was good for the men's hearts.
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Any amount of alcohol lowered their risk of heart diseases.
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And generally speaking, the more they drank, the stronger the effect.
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And the benefit from booze was huge. Like men who
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drank three glasses a day, they had a 35% lower
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risk of getting a heart attack than those who drank nothing.
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And this was after you considered what they ate.
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And I looked at the result going, no, it can't
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be that strong. It can't be that strong that there
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really is a 35% reduction.
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Eric's like, hardly anything you do makes that big of
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a difference.
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So the absolute risk reduction is very similar to exercising regularly.
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Wow.
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Eric found that drinking booze lowered the men's risk of
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a heart attack as much as exercising regularly, which is bonkers.
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And if you're into liquor, the news for booze was
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about to get even better.
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It didn't make a difference what you drank, that if
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you liked vodka or if you liked beer or if
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you liked white wine, you had the same benefit as
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red wine.
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Other studies have come out backing this up too. Beer, gin, whiskey, tequila,
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all of them were found to be good for your heart.
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And while Eric's first study was only in men, other
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research has found that it worked for women too. Their
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risk of coronary heart disease dropped if they only had
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one or two glasses a day. And as all this
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research on alcohol came out, scientists.
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Immediately started wondering why. Why?
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When researchers did some digging, they found a few things
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going on that might explain this. For example, alcohol may
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raise your good cholesterol, keeping plaque from building up in
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your arteries. It also might prevent blood clots. All good
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stuff for preventing future heart attacks. It seemed like case
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of wine closed.
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I dare say there is a few people at my
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institution who have toasted me for 30 years since my
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initial publication.
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Yeah.
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It is not just my friends. It is my colleagues.
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It is the dean of our school.
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So, drinks all round. I'm cracking open a cold one.
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And I'm taking a sip. Well, before I down this,
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you should know that not everyone is toasting this idea
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that alcohol is good for your heart.
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Hang on a minute. This is so flawed. This is
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so fundamentally flawed.
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This is Tim Stockwell. He's a professor of psychology at
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the University of Victoria in Canada. And Tim, he is
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battling team booze. He's part of team booze.
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That's going to get confusing.
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So before we jump to the conclusion it's the alcohol,
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which is such a nice conclusion, it's no, it's more
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complicated than that.
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Scientists in Tim's camp, they were the ones who threw
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a wrench into all this intoxicating booze research.
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But Tim wasn't always a party pooper.
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In fact, he used to think that alcohol was good
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for your heart.
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Then he met a sociologist called Kay Fillmore.
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It was really when I met Kay Fillmore and got
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to know her and her work that I began to
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seriously question the scientific evidence.
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Tell me about Kay.
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She was quite a... Oh, she was one feisty woman.
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She was about five foot nothing, heavy smoker... She liked
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her scotch and, oh, my God, she would give it
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to anybody in large public meetings.
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And Kay was about to start giving it to scientists
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like Eric.
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She died several years ago, but.
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Tim told us that Kay started thinking there was something fishy.
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About all these alcohol studies. So she phoned Tim.
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And, yeah, I get this call, this gravelly voice. She
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was smoking away, puffing on a cigarette, and Tim... Can
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you help me?
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Tim said yes. So Kay's like, alright.
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All these studies are showing that those who drink have
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less heart disease than those who don't. Well, have you
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ever thought, who are these non-drinkers in these studies? Like,
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what kind of person doesn't drink anything? It might seem
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like people who don't drink would be these healthy types,
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you know, my body is a temple. but Kay suspected
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that wasn't true. She started looking into the studies that
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have been done on people who don't drink and found
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something kind of shocking. Generally speaking, they were more likely
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to be unhealthy. Many of them used to drink but
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then had to stop for some medical reason. And so
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the team figured, well, if you want to know if
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alcohol is good for you, then it's a bad idea
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to be comparing drinkers to these sick teetotalers.
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You know, they're unhealthy, so they make the moderate drinkers
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look good by comparison.
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The people who did drink and then stopped, well, some
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scientists call them sick quitters. And it sounds like a
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bad burn, but it basically means they didn't stop drinking
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because they were running a triathlon, but because they weren't well.
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So Tim and Kay thought, let's only look at the
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studies that we trust, like those that don't have this
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problem with sick quitters.
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And when they did that and ran the numbers, then
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all of a sudden alcohol wasn't good for your heart anymore.
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Tim remembers the moment that the team figured it out.
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I remember being stuck in there in the snowstorm and
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talking with her on the phone and working over the
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data and, yeah, yeah, it was pretty clear that the
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significance fell away.
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Significance fell away.
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That's the dorky way of saying that his paper couldn't
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find evidence that beer is good for my heart. Are
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you someone that people want to invite to parties based
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on your research? Ooh, ooh.
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I was invited around to dinner at Friends last night,
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so I'm not a complete pariah. I do occasionally leave
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my house.
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And when Tim and Kay published their study in 2006,
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it got a lot of media attention, making headlines across
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the US saying that alcohol might not be good for
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us anymore. And it really set the stage for the
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confusion that's been mixing us up today.
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Even that one glass of wine at dinner does more
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harm than good. One day it'll kill you, the next
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it'll save your life.
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For Eric, Tim's research was like a shot of vodka
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across the bow. Eric says he's taken these sick quitters
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into account in his studies and he still finds that
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alcohol is good for our heart. But Tim has other
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problems with this research. And it basically centres around this
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idea that it's just really hard to account for everything
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that might be different about people who drink and those
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who don't. And so if you're finding that drinkers have
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lower rates of heart disease, it's hard to know that
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alcohol is the reason why.
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These are very complex issues. These are hugely complicated things
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to resolve.
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And so the two sides have gone round and round
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on this with no end in sight. And by the way,
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the fact that no one has put a cork in
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this yet made us wonder if maybe other than these nerdy.
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Gripes, could this be about the alcohol industry? Like, are
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they brewing up their own research?
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I mean, a big National Institutes of Health study just
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got cancelled because of worries about interference from big alcohol.
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Our producer Meryl Horne asked Tim about it. Do you
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think it explains this debate, why there are some researchers
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that are so convinced that alcohol is good for your heart?
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Oh, the industry funding? No, I think it's just a
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small part of it. Most of these studies are not
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funded by the alcohol industry.
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And full disclosure, we have alcohol advertising on Science Versus.
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Away from industry funding, though, Eric actually has a totally
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different complaint for us.
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I am concerned that by doing this story, you're doing
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somewhat of a disservice. By giving equal weight to both sides,
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you've essentially said, well, this is what the field's like.
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When you go to a conference, there'll be equal people
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on both sides of the aisle. This is not like
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a wedding where there's equal number of people on the
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bride's side and the groom's side.
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After talking to Eric, we weren't sure what to think.
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And so we ended up reaching out to hundreds of
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scientists to.
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Find out what was going on here. Like, was this
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booze battle for real?
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And it turns out that a bunch of scientists are
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now questioning.
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If alcohol is good for your heart.
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So we heard back from around 50 experts, and they
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were split. Half agreed with Eric, and the other half
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either didn't think alcohol helped your heart, or they said
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they didn't know.
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So clearly.
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this is still a spirited debate. Ultimately, where did we land? Well,
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last year, two big reviews came out, pulling together work
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from this entire field. And these newer studies tend to
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show that Eric is right. Alcohol seems to be good
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for your heart. But there are a couple of caveats.
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Now that more studies are being more careful with things
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like the sick-quitter effect... they're finding some things that are
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different to what Eric found. For one, men and women
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get a benefit to their heart after just about one
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drink a day. It's not the more you drink, the
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stronger the effect. Also, more sobering news. Alcohol isn't as
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good at protecting your heart as that early research had found.
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Conclusion.
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It does look like alcohol can protect us against heart disease,
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which is the biggest killer.
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In the United States.
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But it's not the lifesaver that those earlier studies had found. So,
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bottom line, I'm taking a sip of my beer. But
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I'm a little less excited about it. Now, while the
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heart is getting all this attention, there's something else going
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on with alcohol and your body. Something else that might
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make you think twice before picking up that glass.
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Now when I go home and I go to take
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a beer from the fridge, I'm now going to be
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thinking of what you just said.
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Good.
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Not for me. And we're going to tell you about
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that right after the break. Welcome back.
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So for years, as we've been hearing that some alcohol
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is good for us, the conversation has basically centred around
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your heart.
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You could say it's the heart of the issue.
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But something's been bobbing under the surface this whole time,
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like the olive at the bottom of a martini glass.
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And this thing might overshadow any of the potential benefits
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that alcohol is giving to our heart.
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And it's cancer.
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Susan Gapster at the American Cancer Society is looking into this,
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which she says can make for some awkward conversation over cocktails.
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Of course, you get the original, oh my gosh, don't
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show her my drink.
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Really?
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But, you know, then people are curious. They want to know.
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Yeah, and we wanted to know.
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So when it comes to cancer … how much alcohol
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is safe to drink?
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So the most recent evidence has shown that when it
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comes to cancer, there is no safe amount.
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No safe amount.
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What Susan is saying here is, is that even that
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cheeky glass or two of wine every day is bad
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news when it comes to many different types of cancers.
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Even at low amounts of consumption, drinking alcohol increases the
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risk of mouth and throat cancers, cancers of the esophagus,
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which is that tube in the body just beyond your throat.
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Another big one for women is breast cancer. Light drinking
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bumps up your chances of getting it. The research suggests
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it's even riskier if you binge. And the news gets
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worse the more you drink. Then your risk of getting
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all kinds of cancers go up. So, how is alcohol
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doing this? How is it causing cancer? Well, here's one
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way it can happen. Susan told us that after you
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have one drink, the alcohol is broken down into something
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called acetaldehyde.
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Acetaldehyde reacts with DNA and with proteins to basically glob
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onto them.
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Acetaldehyde sticks to our DNA and it can squish itself
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right in the middle of the double helix, getting all
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up in the DNA's business. And all this can trigger
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mutations in our DNA, leading to cancer cells.
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And that's just one mechanism. There are others. Acetaldehyde can
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prevent those cells that are damaged from dying.
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This is a problem because our body has a way
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to clean up damaged cells so they don't stick around
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and grow into tumors.
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But acetaldehyde mucks this up too.
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And when those dud cells with messed up DNA don't die,
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we can get cancer.
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We want damaged cells to die, and acetaldehyde can help
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inhibit that death.
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I mean, I'm imagining myself now when I go home
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and I go to take a beer from the fridge,
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which I know is currently sitting in the fridge.
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I'm now going to be thinking of what you just said.
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Good.
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Not for me!
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00:22:12.589 --> 00:22:17.369
So, alcohol increases our risk of getting cancer. But, I mean,
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doesn't basically everything give us cancer? What we wanted to know...
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is how bad is it? Like, is alcohol a liquid cigarette? Well,
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00:22:29.359 --> 00:22:32.170
we all know that when it comes to cancer, ciggies
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are the worst.
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About 19% of cancers in the population can be attributed
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to smoking.
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And Susan told us that almost 6% of cancers in
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the US are caused by alcohol.
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6%.
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So not as bad as ciggies, but still not great.
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And if you've got a cold one sitting next to you,
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what does all this mean? Like, how much will that
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drink increase your risk of getting cancer? Well, to give
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you an example, one of the cancers that you're most
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likely to get from having a drink each day is
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actually breast cancer.
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That's for a woman anyway. So let's zoom in on this.
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Susan told us that the average woman's lifetime risk of
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getting breast cancer is a little more than 12%. But
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if she's drinking about five drinks a week, her risk
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jumps up to a little more than 13%. And it
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can be hard to know what to feel about a
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stat like that.
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So here's how Susan thinks about it.
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This is something you can do if you're worried about
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your cancer risk. If you are a woman and you
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are worried about your breast cancer risk, You know, minimizing
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your consumption, if you are a two-drink-a-day drinker, you know,
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starting to reduce that is something you can do.
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Currently, the national guidelines in the U.S.
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Recommend that women shouldn't drink more than one drink a
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day and men should keep it to two. When we
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dug into these recommendations, we realized that there wasn't clear science.
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As to why the cutoff is like this.
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It's now looking like everyone's risk for cancer goes up
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if they have just one glass a day. And as
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we mentioned, the newest research is showing that the benefit
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to everyone's heart, on average, comes from one drink too. So,
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when it comes to alcohol, should we raise a glass?
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Yes, probably.
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While there is some nerdy argy-bargy going on, overall, the
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research does show that it can reduce your risk of
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getting heart disease. And that is the number one killer
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in the US. Two, does alcohol increase our risk of cancer? Yes,
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even if you don't drink very much. And the more
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you drink, the greater your risk. And by the way, cancer,
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that's the second biggest killer in the US.
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So, alcohol, good for the heart, bad for the cancer.
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Should I drink this beer or not?
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We asked all of our experts where they personally stood
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on drinking. And while none of them were big boozers,
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none of them had cut out alcohol completely.
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I'm a red wine fan mostly, although a good Chardonnay
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from California is great.
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Well, look, I like a glass of wine or a beer.
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These days, I never drink more than two, I think.
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You know, I love buttery Chardonnays.
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So for me... I'm going to finish this beer, but
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I won't crack open another one. So, cheers? That's science
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versus alcohol. Hi, Meryl Horne, producer at Science Versus.
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Hi, Wendy.
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So, how many citations in this week's episode?
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This week we have 90 citations. 90 citations! And that
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includes our survey. Yeah, shout out to Michelle Dang, our
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fantastic new intern. Oh my god, she contacted so many
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researchers for this. If you want to see the results
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of it, where can you look? At our website.
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Oh my gosh, it.
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Really is a bar graph. Alright, let's get out of here.
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And Science Versus is now on Instagram.
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Yeah, you can see behind the scenes photos and just
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00:26:29.599 --> 00:26:31.680
generally photos of us being nerds.
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00:26:32.140 --> 00:26:33.329
So find us on Instagram.
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We're at science underscore VS.
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That's science underscore VS. This episode was produced.
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By Meryl Horne with help from me, Wendy Zuckerman, as
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00:26:42.660 --> 00:26:45.480
well as Rose Rimler and Michelle Dang. Our senior producer
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00:26:45.539 --> 00:26:48.880
is Caitlin Sorey. We're edited by Blythe Terrell. Editing help
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00:26:48.940 --> 00:26:52.440
from Caitlin Kenny. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Michelle Dang.
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00:26:52.890 --> 00:26:56.029
Mix and sound design by Peter Leonard. Music by Peter Leonard,
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00:26:56.210 --> 00:27:00.029
Emma Munger and Bobby Lord. Thanks especially to Michelle Dang
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00:27:00.109 --> 00:27:03.069
for all her research help on this episode. Also, a
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00:27:03.150 --> 00:27:05.329
big thanks to all the researchers we got in touch
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with for this episode, including Dr Arthur Klatsky, Dr William Kerr,
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00:27:09.819 --> 00:27:14.140
Dr Tim Nyami, Professor William Garley, Dr Wendy Chen, Max
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00:27:14.180 --> 00:27:20.039
Griswold and many others. Recording help from Andrew Stelzer, Susanna Capilouto,
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00:27:20.380 --> 00:27:23.920
Katie Sage and Joseph Friedman. Also, thanks to Lynn Levy,
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00:27:24.160 --> 00:27:28.859
the Zuckerman family and Joseph Lavelle-Wilson. Next week, we'll take
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you to an ugly and long forgotten chapter in America's
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science history.
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And we ask, what went wrong? We were putting poison
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on people's backs.
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And at the time, I thought it was the most
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interesting thing.
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I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Back to you next week.
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Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Versus
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from Gimlet.
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We are back for a new season. It's good to
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be here. We missed you.
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And we're kicking off the season by pitting facts against
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old fashions.
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Today, alcohol. Is it good for you or not? For decades,
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we've been hearing that drinking a glass or two is
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practically a health food.
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There is groundbreaking new research on the benefits of drinking
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alcohol moderately.
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Many studies have shown that drinking a moderate amount of
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red wine can help the fight against heart disease, Alzheimer's
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and some cancers. One to two glasses of something a day,
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that might actually be pretty good for you.
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But while many of us were drinking up this news,
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things recently changed. If you turned on the telly last year,
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you were hearing a very different story.
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We hate to be the ones to break some sobering
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news to you, but a major new study says no
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amount of alcohol is good for your overall health.
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So what's going on? Is science now saying boo to booze?
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Even that one glass of wine at dinner does more
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harm than good.
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No amount of alcohol is good for you, not even
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a little bit.
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Is this thing that we love doing after a stressful
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day of work really killing us? Well, it turns out
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that what we thought was a fairly simple question took
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us down this rabbit hole where things just got curiouser
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and curiouser and it became almost impossible to know what
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to think. We even surveyed around 50 experts about their
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thoughts on alcohol and they couldn't give us a clear
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answer either.
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So, might as well give up, right? Never. Here at Science.
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Versus, there's no question too confusing, no research quagmire too sticky.
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Strap on your beer goggles.
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And get yourself ready for a peer-reviewed adventure to find
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out once and for all, is alcohol good for us
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or not? When it comes to alcohol, there are lots
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of opinions. But then there's science. Science vs Alcohol is
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coming up just after the break.
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Cheers! Hey, it's Wendy from Science Versus, and I want
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to tell you about a podcast that I love, Science Friday.
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They cover all sorts of amazing things in the weird
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and wonderful world of science, from how concussions affect our
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00:02:47.849 --> 00:02:50.909
brain to the inner secrets of a snake with a
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00:02:51.009 --> 00:02:53.530
spider on its tale. It's a lot of news that
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you can use and some that you can't, but you're
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going to love anyway.
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It's hosted by Ira Flato and Flora Lichtman.
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Who is an old friend of the show and loves
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a pun as much as we do. Science Friday is
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00:03:05.919 --> 00:03:08.509
on every day wherever you get your podcasts.
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Welcome back. Today we are finding out if that cheeky
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beer is killing us. We all know that drinking a lot,
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like four drinks a day, can be bad for us.
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It increases our risk for all kinds of diseases, like
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liver disease.
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And it makes it more.
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Likely that we'll get into serious accidents. But where it's
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confusing is when it comes to drinking in moderation. You know,
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cracking open a cold one or two. Because it seems
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like every day we hear something different.
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Some say it's good for you, some say it's bad
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for you, and all I want to know is can
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I have a beer?
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To start our journey in answering this question, we wanted
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to take you to a time where basically no one
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was seriously arguing that alcohol was good for you.
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Alcohol is a violent narcotic, almost as if its aim
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in life was to transform man back into an animal.
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This is a PSA from 1952. All it takes is
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five drops of alcohol for every thousand drops of blood, and, brother,
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you're a dead duck.
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Things changed for alcohol in the 1970s, though. That was
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when a very curious study came out showing that alcohol
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might actually be good for you. It found that people
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who drank had far fewer heart attacks than those who
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didn't drink, and it caused a huge stir. Heart disease
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kills hundreds of thousands of Americans each year.
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It's the biggest killer around.
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And if this finding was true, no longer were drinkers
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dead ducks, but they might be majestic eagles soaring to health.
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Other scientists immediately bellied up to the bar and wanted
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to find out, could.
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This be true? Could alcohol really be good for you?
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I was surprised that there was something... That seems so simplistic.
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It really was, gee, just really having a couple glasses
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of wine with dinner can have that strong of an impact.
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Eric Rimm is a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard,
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and one of his first big studies was checking to
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see if that 1970s paper was right.
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After all, the idea that alcohol could help your heart?
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It sounded too good to be true.
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Yeah, I think people were skeptical. Anecdotally, Alcohol was bad.
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People who showed up in hospitals had too much, and
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therefore if too much was bad, then a moderate amount
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was bad too.
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So in the 1980s, Eric tried to get to the
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bottom of the glass. He got more than 40,000 men
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to tell him how much they drank, their medical history,
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and he also asked the men what they ate to
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see if maybe it wasn't the alcohol, but something the
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drinkers happened to be eating that was protecting their heart.
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Maybe we can sift out, is it the alcohol or
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is it the diet? So we had four pages where
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we asked them about their diet. And it was a
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list of about 130 foods. So you'd go through and
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tell us how many sweet potatoes you ate on average
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over the last year, how much red meat you ate.
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To make sure that Eric could trust that people were
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accurately filling out his survey... Eric's team later made sure
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that what people said they ate lined up with what
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was actually in their bodies. So they'd look for specific
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chemicals found in certain foods.
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So if you eat a lot of carrots, that means
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you should have a lot of beta-carotene in your blood.
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And sure enough, people that reported more carrots had much
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higher levels of beta-carotene. And people that reported more tuna
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had more mercury in their toenails, which we'd expect because
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there's mercury in tuna.
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So You actually went and measured the mercury in people's
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toenails to make sure that they were reporting their tuna
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consumption correctly?
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Yeah. We have one of the world's largest collections of toenails. Yeah,
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I don't like to brag about that, but that comes
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up at parties.
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Yeah, sounds like a real rager. Okay, back to Eric's
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first study. So as the late 1980s were rolling into
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the 90s, Eric starts plugging all this info into about
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what people drank and ate and whether they got a
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heart attack into a computer, which was very fancy for
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the time.
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You hit the enter key. In this case, you know,
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I had to wait eight hours for it to churn
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through because the computers were pretty slow at that time.
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And when the results popped up, Eric found that alcohol
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really was good for the men's hearts.
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Any amount of alcohol lowered their risk of heart diseases.
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And generally speaking, the more they drank, the stronger the effect.
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And the benefit from booze was huge. Like men who
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drank three glasses a day, they had a 35% lower
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risk of getting a heart attack than those who drank nothing.
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And this was after you considered what they ate.
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And I looked at the result going, no, it can't
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be that strong. It can't be that strong that there
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really is a 35% reduction.
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Eric's like, hardly anything you do makes that big of
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a difference.
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So the absolute risk reduction is very similar to exercising regularly.
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Wow.
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Eric found that drinking booze lowered the men's risk of
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a heart attack as much as exercising regularly, which is bonkers.
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And if you're into liquor, the news for booze was
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about to get even better.
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It didn't make a difference what you drank, that if
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you liked vodka or if you liked beer or if
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you liked white wine, you had the same benefit as
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red wine.
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Other studies have come out backing this up too. Beer, gin, whiskey, tequila,
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all of them were found to be good for your heart.
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And while Eric's first study was only in men, other
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research has found that it worked for women too. Their
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risk of coronary heart disease dropped if they only had
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one or two glasses a day. And as all this
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research on alcohol came out, scientists.
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Immediately started wondering why. Why?
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When researchers did some digging, they found a few things
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going on that might explain this. For example, alcohol may
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raise your good cholesterol, keeping plaque from building up in
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your arteries. It also might prevent blood clots. All good
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stuff for preventing future heart attacks. It seemed like case
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of wine closed.
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I dare say there is a few people at my
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institution who have toasted me for 30 years since my
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initial publication.
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Yeah.
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It is not just my friends. It is my colleagues.
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It is the dean of our school.
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So, drinks all round. I'm cracking open a cold one.
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And I'm taking a sip. Well, before I down this,
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you should know that not everyone is toasting this idea
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that alcohol is good for your heart.
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Hang on a minute. This is so flawed. This is
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so fundamentally flawed.
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This is Tim Stockwell. He's a professor of psychology at
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the University of Victoria in Canada. And Tim, he is
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battling team booze. He's part of team booze.
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That's going to get confusing.
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So before we jump to the conclusion it's the alcohol,
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which is such a nice conclusion, it's no, it's more
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complicated than that.
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Scientists in Tim's camp, they were the ones who threw
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a wrench into all this intoxicating booze research.
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But Tim wasn't always a party pooper.
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In fact, he used to think that alcohol was good
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for your heart.
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Then he met a sociologist called Kay Fillmore.
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It was really when I met Kay Fillmore and got
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to know her and her work that I began to
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seriously question the scientific evidence.
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Tell me about Kay.
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She was quite a... Oh, she was one feisty woman.
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She was about five foot nothing, heavy smoker... She liked
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her scotch and, oh, my God, she would give it
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to anybody in large public meetings.
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And Kay was about to start giving it to scientists
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like Eric.
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She died several years ago, but.
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Tim told us that Kay started thinking there was something fishy.
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About all these alcohol studies. So she phoned Tim.
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And, yeah, I get this call, this gravelly voice. She
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was smoking away, puffing on a cigarette, and Tim... Can
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you help me?
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Tim said yes. So Kay's like, alright.
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All these studies are showing that those who drink have
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less heart disease than those who don't. Well, have you
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ever thought, who are these non-drinkers in these studies? Like,
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what kind of person doesn't drink anything? It might seem
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like people who don't drink would be these healthy types,
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you know, my body is a temple. but Kay suspected
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that wasn't true. She started looking into the studies that
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have been done on people who don't drink and found
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something kind of shocking. Generally speaking, they were more likely
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to be unhealthy. Many of them used to drink but
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then had to stop for some medical reason. And so
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the team figured, well, if you want to know if
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alcohol is good for you, then it's a bad idea
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to be comparing drinkers to these sick teetotalers.
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You know, they're unhealthy, so they make the moderate drinkers
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look good by comparison.
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The people who did drink and then stopped, well, some
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scientists call them sick quitters. And it sounds like a
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bad burn, but it basically means they didn't stop drinking
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because they were running a triathlon, but because they weren't well.
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So Tim and Kay thought, let's only look at the
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studies that we trust, like those that don't have this
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problem with sick quitters.
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And when they did that and ran the numbers, then
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all of a sudden alcohol wasn't good for your heart anymore.
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Tim remembers the moment that the team figured it out.
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I remember being stuck in there in the snowstorm and
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talking with her on the phone and working over the
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data and, yeah, yeah, it was pretty clear that the
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significance fell away.
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Significance fell away.
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That's the dorky way of saying that his paper couldn't
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find evidence that beer is good for my heart. Are
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you someone that people want to invite to parties based
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on your research? Ooh, ooh.
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I was invited around to dinner at Friends last night,
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so I'm not a complete pariah. I do occasionally leave
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my house.
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And when Tim and Kay published their study in 2006,
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it got a lot of media attention, making headlines across
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the US saying that alcohol might not be good for
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us anymore. And it really set the stage for the
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confusion that's been mixing us up today.
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Even that one glass of wine at dinner does more
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harm than good. One day it'll kill you, the next
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it'll save your life.
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For Eric, Tim's research was like a shot of vodka
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across the bow. Eric says he's taken these sick quitters
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into account in his studies and he still finds that
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alcohol is good for our heart. But Tim has other
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problems with this research. And it basically centres around this
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idea that it's just really hard to account for everything
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that might be different about people who drink and those
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who don't. And so if you're finding that drinkers have
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lower rates of heart disease, it's hard to know that
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alcohol is the reason why.
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These are very complex issues. These are hugely complicated things
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to resolve.
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And so the two sides have gone round and round
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on this with no end in sight. And by the way,
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the fact that no one has put a cork in
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this yet made us wonder if maybe other than these nerdy.
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Gripes, could this be about the alcohol industry? Like, are
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they brewing up their own research?
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I mean, a big National Institutes of Health study just
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got cancelled because of worries about interference from big alcohol.
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Our producer Meryl Horne asked Tim about it. Do you
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think it explains this debate, why there are some researchers
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that are so convinced that alcohol is good for your heart?
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Oh, the industry funding? No, I think it's just a
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small part of it. Most of these studies are not
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funded by the alcohol industry.
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And full disclosure, we have alcohol advertising on Science Versus.
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Away from industry funding, though, Eric actually has a totally
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different complaint for us.
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I am concerned that by doing this story, you're doing
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somewhat of a disservice. By giving equal weight to both sides,
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you've essentially said, well, this is what the field's like.
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When you go to a conference, there'll be equal people
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on both sides of the aisle. This is not like
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a wedding where there's equal number of people on the
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bride's side and the groom's side.
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After talking to Eric, we weren't sure what to think.
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And so we ended up reaching out to hundreds of
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scientists to.
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Find out what was going on here. Like, was this
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booze battle for real?
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And it turns out that a bunch of scientists are
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now questioning.
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If alcohol is good for your heart.
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So we heard back from around 50 experts, and they
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were split. Half agreed with Eric, and the other half
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either didn't think alcohol helped your heart, or they said
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they didn't know.
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So clearly.
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this is still a spirited debate. Ultimately, where did we land? Well,
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last year, two big reviews came out, pulling together work
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from this entire field. And these newer studies tend to
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show that Eric is right. Alcohol seems to be good
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for your heart. But there are a couple of caveats.
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Now that more studies are being more careful with things
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like the sick-quitter effect... they're finding some things that are
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different to what Eric found. For one, men and women
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get a benefit to their heart after just about one
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drink a day. It's not the more you drink, the
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stronger the effect. Also, more sobering news. Alcohol isn't as
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good at protecting your heart as that early research had found.
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Conclusion.
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It does look like alcohol can protect us against heart disease,
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which is the biggest killer.
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In the United States.
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But it's not the lifesaver that those earlier studies had found. So,
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bottom line, I'm taking a sip of my beer. But
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I'm a little less excited about it. Now, while the
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heart is getting all this attention, there's something else going
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on with alcohol and your body. Something else that might
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make you think twice before picking up that glass.
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Now when I go home and I go to take
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a beer from the fridge, I'm now going to be
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thinking of what you just said.
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Good.
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Not for me. And we're going to tell you about
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that right after the break. Welcome back.
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So for years, as we've been hearing that some alcohol
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is good for us, the conversation has basically centred around
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your heart.
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You could say it's the heart of the issue.
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But something's been bobbing under the surface this whole time,
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like the olive at the bottom of a martini glass.
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And this thing might overshadow any of the potential benefits
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that alcohol is giving to our heart.
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And it's cancer.
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Susan Gapster at the American Cancer Society is looking into this,
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which she says can make for some awkward conversation over cocktails.
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Of course, you get the original, oh my gosh, don't
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show her my drink.
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Really?
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But, you know, then people are curious. They want to know.
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Yeah, and we wanted to know.
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So when it comes to cancer … how much alcohol
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is safe to drink?
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So the most recent evidence has shown that when it
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comes to cancer, there is no safe amount.
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No safe amount.
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What Susan is saying here is, is that even that
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cheeky glass or two of wine every day is bad
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news when it comes to many different types of cancers.
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Even at low amounts of consumption, drinking alcohol increases the
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risk of mouth and throat cancers, cancers of the esophagus,
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which is that tube in the body just beyond your throat.
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Another big one for women is breast cancer. Light drinking
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bumps up your chances of getting it. The research suggests
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it's even riskier if you binge. And the news gets
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worse the more you drink. Then your risk of getting
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all kinds of cancers go up. So, how is alcohol
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doing this? How is it causing cancer? Well, here's one
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way it can happen. Susan told us that after you
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have one drink, the alcohol is broken down into something
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called acetaldehyde.
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Acetaldehyde reacts with DNA and with proteins to basically glob
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onto them.
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Acetaldehyde sticks to our DNA and it can squish itself
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right in the middle of the double helix, getting all
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up in the DNA's business. And all this can trigger
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mutations in our DNA, leading to cancer cells.
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And that's just one mechanism. There are others. Acetaldehyde can
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prevent those cells that are damaged from dying.
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This is a problem because our body has a way
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to clean up damaged cells so they don't stick around
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and grow into tumors.
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But acetaldehyde mucks this up too.
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And when those dud cells with messed up DNA don't die,
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we can get cancer.
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We want damaged cells to die, and acetaldehyde can help
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inhibit that death.
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I mean, I'm imagining myself now when I go home
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and I go to take a beer from the fridge,
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which I know is currently sitting in the fridge.
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I'm now going to be thinking of what you just said.
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Good.
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Not for me!
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So, alcohol increases our risk of getting cancer. But, I mean,
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doesn't basically everything give us cancer? What we wanted to know...
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is how bad is it? Like, is alcohol a liquid cigarette? Well,
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00:22:29.359 --> 00:22:32.170
we all know that when it comes to cancer, ciggies
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are the worst.
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00:22:33.549 --> 00:22:38.549
About 19% of cancers in the population can be attributed
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to smoking.
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And Susan told us that almost 6% of cancers in
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the US are caused by alcohol.
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6%.
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So not as bad as ciggies, but still not great.
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And if you've got a cold one sitting next to you,
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what does all this mean? Like, how much will that
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drink increase your risk of getting cancer? Well, to give
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you an example, one of the cancers that you're most
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likely to get from having a drink each day is
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actually breast cancer.
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That's for a woman anyway. So let's zoom in on this.
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Susan told us that the average woman's lifetime risk of
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getting breast cancer is a little more than 12%. But
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if she's drinking about five drinks a week, her risk
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jumps up to a little more than 13%. And it
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can be hard to know what to feel about a
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stat like that.
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So here's how Susan thinks about it.
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This is something you can do if you're worried about
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your cancer risk. If you are a woman and you
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are worried about your breast cancer risk, You know, minimizing
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your consumption, if you are a two-drink-a-day drinker, you know,
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starting to reduce that is something you can do.
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Currently, the national guidelines in the U.S.
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Recommend that women shouldn't drink more than one drink a
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day and men should keep it to two. When we
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dug into these recommendations, we realized that there wasn't clear science.
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As to why the cutoff is like this.
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It's now looking like everyone's risk for cancer goes up
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if they have just one glass a day. And as
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we mentioned, the newest research is showing that the benefit
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to everyone's heart, on average, comes from one drink too. So,
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when it comes to alcohol, should we raise a glass?
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Yes, probably.
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While there is some nerdy argy-bargy going on, overall, the
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research does show that it can reduce your risk of
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getting heart disease. And that is the number one killer
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in the US. Two, does alcohol increase our risk of cancer? Yes,
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even if you don't drink very much. And the more
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you drink, the greater your risk. And by the way, cancer,
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that's the second biggest killer in the US.
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So, alcohol, good for the heart, bad for the cancer.
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Should I drink this beer or not?
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We asked all of our experts where they personally stood
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on drinking. And while none of them were big boozers,
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none of them had cut out alcohol completely.
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I'm a red wine fan mostly, although a good Chardonnay
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from California is great.
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Well, look, I like a glass of wine or a beer.
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These days, I never drink more than two, I think.
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You know, I love buttery Chardonnays.
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So for me... I'm going to finish this beer, but
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I won't crack open another one. So, cheers? That's science
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versus alcohol. Hi, Meryl Horne, producer at Science Versus.
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Hi, Wendy.
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So, how many citations in this week's episode?
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This week we have 90 citations. 90 citations! And that
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includes our survey. Yeah, shout out to Michelle Dang, our
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00:26:08.450 --> 00:26:11.769
fantastic new intern. Oh my god, she contacted so many
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researchers for this. If you want to see the results
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of it, where can you look? At our website.
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00:26:16.789 --> 00:26:17.700
Oh my gosh, it.
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00:26:17.779 --> 00:26:22.059
Really is a bar graph. Alright, let's get out of here.
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And Science Versus is now on Instagram.
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Yeah, you can see behind the scenes photos and just
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00:26:29.599 --> 00:26:31.680
generally photos of us being nerds.
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00:26:32.140 --> 00:26:33.329
So find us on Instagram.
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We're at science underscore VS.
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That's science underscore VS. This episode was produced.
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00:26:40.019 --> 00:26:42.619
By Meryl Horne with help from me, Wendy Zuckerman, as
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00:26:42.660 --> 00:26:45.480
well as Rose Rimler and Michelle Dang. Our senior producer
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00:26:45.539 --> 00:26:48.880
is Caitlin Sorey. We're edited by Blythe Terrell. Editing help
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00:26:48.940 --> 00:26:52.440
from Caitlin Kenny. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Michelle Dang.
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00:26:52.890 --> 00:26:56.029
Mix and sound design by Peter Leonard. Music by Peter Leonard,
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00:26:56.210 --> 00:27:00.029
Emma Munger and Bobby Lord. Thanks especially to Michelle Dang
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00:27:00.109 --> 00:27:03.069
for all her research help on this episode. Also, a
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00:27:03.150 --> 00:27:05.329
big thanks to all the researchers we got in touch
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with for this episode, including Dr Arthur Klatsky, Dr William Kerr,
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00:27:09.819 --> 00:27:14.140
Dr Tim Nyami, Professor William Garley, Dr Wendy Chen, Max
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00:27:14.180 --> 00:27:20.039
Griswold and many others. Recording help from Andrew Stelzer, Susanna Capilouto,
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00:27:20.380 --> 00:27:23.920
Katie Sage and Joseph Friedman. Also, thanks to Lynn Levy,
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00:27:24.160 --> 00:27:28.859
the Zuckerman family and Joseph Lavelle-Wilson. Next week, we'll take
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00:27:28.900 --> 00:27:32.220
you to an ugly and long forgotten chapter in America's
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00:27:32.259 --> 00:27:33.160
science history.
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00:27:33.720 --> 00:27:37.950
And we ask, what went wrong? We were putting poison
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on people's backs.
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And at the time, I thought it was the most
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interesting thing.
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I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Back to you next week.
