this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2025
182 points (100.0% liked)

science

18524 readers
473 users here now

A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.

rule #1: be kind

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 23 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 55 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This was news like 20+ years ago and here we still are.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago (1 children)

here we still are.

Not the ones who got type 2 diabetes 20+ years ago

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

My mom says it that way. It makes me twitch.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Drinking soda is like drinking alcohol... But it is socially acceptable to shit on people who consume only of the alcohol.

Hmm

I guess drinking and driving is bad PR

[–] [email protected] 61 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Alcohol is incredibly worse, and it's much less accepted to criticize it. This is inept.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Sugar kills more and more people are certified land whales.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You're not going to win this argument, sugar intake is inwardly destructive, while alcohol is inward and outward. The victims of alcohol are not just the people that consume it, whether it be from drinking and driving, spousal abuse, watching someone you love deteriorating their brain and liver, etc.

This is not apples to apples at all.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Deff not apples to apples...

But which one is a public health emergency and which one has bigger lobby?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Alcohol is definitely a big public health issue. But if you think that getting rid of it is an option, we tried that once and it didn't go too well.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

We ain't getting rid of sugar either... I am positing that we should be treating sugar like alcohol.

Policy and socially.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

And car accidents are still more dangerous, and that's ignoring the non-deadly dangers of alcohol.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Most car accidents are result of poor infrastructure and human error... Not drunk drivers.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago

In the US 31% of car fatalities are linked with alcohol consumption. I don't think you can argue that it's negligible.

I doubt that poor infrastructure is causing more than that, and as far as I know there is no magic solution to solve human error (while there is, for drunk driving: don't drink).

Also this conversation was about comparing it to sugar, and I will take a bet and say that sugar causes car accidents, violence and rape much less often than alcohol.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

In this scenario, alcohol is less bad than soda. It has similar calories but they’re not entirely empty - different drinks have different advantages. For example beer tends to have vitamin b and a small amount of fiber, whereas soda is completely empty.

Alcohol is detrimental in different ways, especially when you have more than one

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

What scenario exactly? The deaths and health issues caused by each? Because else, there is really no point. You're just grasping for anything you can find to defend alcohol if all you can find is"there are some vitamins in some alcoholic drinks", especially considering that it is also the case for a lot of sweet drinks, even sodas.

Alcohol is extremely unhealthy, causes dangerous behaviours, deaths, cancers and so on, is one of the few things that can kill you from withdrawal, causes permanent defects on kids during pregnancy, and all of that while being not only legal, not only accepted, but actually actively encouraged and seen as a requirement in society. If you don't believe me just try to post anything saying that alcohol is stupid at parties.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I understand alcohol is bad for pretty much everyone and worse for some. There’s no defense.

However in a thread on “the harm of sugary drinks”, it’s not the worst choice.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Both are sins, and should be treated as such.

But sugar gets a pass due to heavy lobby and cultural acceptance.

It should be subject to heavier scrutiny from policy side and socially made unappealing just like how people talk about alcohol in this thread.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

For sure, sugar is also more pervasive, whereas alcohol has always been regulated enough to be its own thing.

Sugar isn’t just a problem in candies, desserts, and sodas, but way too much is added to things like yogurt, juice, ketchup, salad dressing, throughout the food chain.

As an occasional alcohol drinker, I’m all for tightening things up. We did prove that prohibition doesn’t work, but age restrictions and taxes have made a huge impact on underage drinking. Let’s crank that up. Make me pay more vice taxes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Correct, sugar is unchecked and society accepts it.

Tax it and limit social appeal

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

In this scenario, alcohol is less bad than soda

If by "scenario" you mean you only want to observe single parameter, then fine, but that's not really useful.

Alcohol is much worse than soda.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

By this scenario, I me as n “the harm of sugary drinks”. The context is the title.

Of course alcohol is overall much more harmful but if we’re talking about empty calories and insulin insensitivity, there are worse choices

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

I'm talking shit about the bubble tea and coke by the gallon slurping fatties all the time, just a matter of your audience.