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An exhibition of the huge photo-realistic charcoal drawings of Robert Longo opened today at Vienna’s Albertina. The skill is mind-boggling. Catching my eye was Freud’s couch pillow and a meticulous drawing of a Pollock drip painting. ■
The chance that alcohol causes our death increases rapidly with the amount consumed. Drinking under 140ml a week is estimated to keep the chances of an alcohol death below 1/100. The only way to make the risk zero risk is to not drink any. ■
This is one of a collection of shareable alcohol messages. If you think more people should know, please share and join the supporters.
Acknowledging that the profit motive warps health information to generate sales can help us lead healthier, more rewarding lives, at lower risk and lower cost.
Businesses large and small routinely seek to emphasise potential health benefits of their products and services while minimising or denying downsides outright.
These one-sided stories are routinely retold uncritically in media coverage, ads, pharmacies, on labels and on the channels of online influencers.
Food, drink and supplement categories support rafts of flimsy studies to justify vague health claims. Alcohol’s was debunked for the umpteenth time this month.
To dismiss these claims is not to dismiss the products. They might bring us joy, relieve pain and make us feel better, just not a positive stepchange in our health or life expectancy.
The benefit of scepticism is it stops us overcommitting to a product based on unrealistic expectations, perhaps with downsides and side effects, not least disappointment.
Rather than becoming a super-consumer to serve a business interest we can consume in ways that make us feel better. Our time and money can be used for other things.
There are around seven things we can do to improve our long term health which a huge range of foods, drinks and activities can help us achieve in enjoyable ways.
Making choices to serve ourselves
Real medicines have third-party verification based on large scale medical trials, and even then some wrong-uns slip through the net.
Beyond this any implication of a product offering big health benefits should be a red flag to us, with any studies cited highly unlikely to withstand serious scrutiny.
Wellness influencers and media platforms are also iffy intermediaries, being largely funded by selling pricey supplements while promoting gurus with wares to sell.
This format is largely there to solve a revenue problem rather than address a health problem. We should not give uncredit to their most strikingly-positive health claims.
So too psychedelics and cannabis, which vested interest promote as health enhancing without robust health studies while, obviously, saying little about their risks.
Even austere practices like meditation have some rarely aired perils. The Dalai Lama himself was nonplussed to be told about them.
Yoga, massage, meditation or practices like cold exposure might help us feel good but will not “supercharge our immune system”, as some of their proponents say they will.
Being wary of the way commercial interests warp the truth is tiresome, but it is also a way to make choices which are less costly, less risky and more rewarding,
Industries’ main goal is revenue, whatever marketing category they might operate in, be it food, drink, health or wellness. Their health claims are not made to serve us.
The most reliable working assumption is to disbelieve health claims from non-medical businesses. ■
Updated 28.8.2024 to include response from Men’s Sheds.
The UK Men’s Sheds Association acknowledged concerns from health experts and shed users about its partnership with alcohol giant Diageo, while highlighting the benefits of the controversial deal.
“It is genuinely a response to harmful drinking especially in the 50-70 age group,” Men’s Shed chief executive Charlie Bethel told Alcohol Review. The 18-month pilot of the DrinkIQ-branded co-created product will allow the charity to assess its impact. One shed which closed now meets at a Wetherspoons, Bethel noted.
Bethel said some shed users have objected to the deal, but he said it is comparable to other charities taking money from National Lottery scratch cards. He said he could not speak for Diageo’s motives, but noted the success of its alcohol free beers. There is currently no evidence alcohol-free beer cuts harm.
“It’s prob too late but worth having a read of the evidence on partnerships with harmful product industries They don’t have men’s health–or women’s, for that matter–as a strategic aim,” said Greg Fell, President of the The Association Of Directors of Public Health (UK), on X at the time of the announcement in late July.
“There are other places to get your information about alcohol harm to help with recovery, addiction and mental health regarding alcohol than those that make it profit from it,” commented alcohol harm reduction campaigner Mick Unwin.
“This is a very unfortunate move by UK Men’s Sheds,” said Sheila Gilheany head of Alcohol Action Ireland, echoing the similar concerns about the expertise an alcohol company might have in offering information on alcohol harm.
“Very sad to see this corporate capture of Men’s Sheds,” said another commenter who sits on the board of a harm reduction charity. ■
Life is”a dream and a fear” mused Austrian artist Alfred Kubin, an outlook shown in a new doomscroll of his pen and ink drawings. It seems less the “Aesthetics of Evil”, as the Albertina Modern exhibition is called, but that of unremitting gloom.
“I do not work for pleasure, but to forget the disgust I feel for myself and the whole world,” he said. It does not appear to have been a joke. ■
This is one of a collection of shareable alcohol messages. If you think more people should know, please share and join the supporters.
Labels don’t tell us to avoid pressuring other people to drink alcohol. But there are many good reasons to avoid alcohol, not least avoiding harm to our physical and mental health. ■