Dr. Keith Humphreys

And that just got marketed and spread and it's not true.

There might be some cardiac benefit, okay, but we don't get to live our lives as single organs, we have a whole body, you have to weigh that, if that is true, and it is wobbly, but if that's true, it's smaller than the cancer risk.

So your net is you're not going to get any mortality reduction from drinking alcohol.

If you have two drinks a week, and by a drink I mean like a 12-ounce beer, a one-ounce shot or a glass of wine, a four-ounce glass of wine,

You have slightly higher risk, but it is very, very, very small.

And, you know, it's not the kind of thing if I, you know, if I were giving health advice to the country that would not be on my top 10 things to be, you know, really frightened about.

I think it's very small, it's just not good for you.

That's what science has overturned, the industry message that this will extend your life and you'll be more healthy if you drink than if you don't.

There's no way we can establish that as being true.

As I mentioned, I'm someone who drinks wine and I know that it is, on average, it's not healthy.

Why do I do that?

It's like, well, because it creates other things, particularly with exactly that situation, getting together with friends is enjoyable, enriching, good food is enriching, good food and a good wine tastes good.

and I value those things.

And there are many other decisions we make like that where we endure some risk because we care about something else.

You know, it's dangerous to, you know, for someone my age to hike up a mountainside probably, but if the view is spectacular, I can say, I'm going to accept that risk, maybe I'm more prone to twist my ankle or something, but this is just really beautiful.

That's okay.

I think what...

The place we got an alcohol that was bad was needing an explanation to stop.

So how often have you ever said to someone at a party or seen someone say at a party, why are you drinking?

I've never heard that, but I've certainly heard a million times, why aren't you drinking?