[00:02] alcohol provides a net health benefit at any level of intake. This challenges the especially wine, is somehow good for you. Even one to two drinks a few times a week, might be worse for you. You're
[00:16] risk in exchange for relaxation, pleasure, ritual, or social bonding. Treat it like dessert, a very unhealthy dessert, not like medicine. So, what should you actually do with this information?
[00:34] Here was my previous position on alcohol. Like most of the folks who were following the evidence on alcohol and health. Over about the past 50 years or so, I used to hold the default position
[00:46] on this topic. And here's what roughly the default position was. Number one, alcohol at high doses and frequencies. For example, like multiple days a week For example, like multiple days a week of four or more drinks at a time were
[01:01] very delletterious to health and deletious to longevity. Just made you less healthy in a notable way and made you live less long. Anything north of that, any much more alcohol than multiple times a day, four plus drinks
[01:15] in frequency and in drink amounts was exponentially worse. We had known this for a very long time. Next, alcohol consumption of two to Next, alcohol consumption of two to three drinks a day, a few days a week,
[01:29] was a a health and longevity negative. But in my reasoning is if it helped you relax, it might even cancel out and be a net neutral. Cuz on the one hand, if you your health. But on the other hand, if you relax a ton with just a little bit
[01:45] some people, alcohol is a psychological trigger for relaxation. And relaxation is such a big deal in stress management that it boosts health longevity and might cancel out the alcohol. I still think there's something there.
[02:00] Number three, alcohol consumption in my view at the time of one to two drinks per day and even daily, especially if that alcohol was the healthier red wine, might actually be or I thought at the time a health positive and it was at
[02:17] time a health positive and it was at least likely to be neutral at worst. consuming alcohol at all was almost certainly not a bad thing, even if you
[02:31] take the positive effects of small amounts of red wine as a given. I was usually on the lower end of these alcohol views, which is to say that I typically aired on advocating less consumption than more on the margin. So
[02:44] like not two to three drinks a day, but more like one to two if you could manage it. And I was both privately and publicly skeptical that even minimal alcohol consumption was a net positive in any way because I was always of the
[02:58] opinion that alcohol is kind of like poison because it is. And to that effect, I personally almost never drink and almost never drink. If I do, it's regret. It happens once every two years and every time I'm like, why? But all in
[03:14] all, this was some version of the evidence-based view for most folks who evidence-based view for most folks who had looked into it in years past. But had looked into it in years past. But the most recent evidence changes this. A
[03:26] recent massive study of alcohol consumption has shifted my opinion of alcohol somewhat, and I think you guys should know about it because I'm important and have important opinions. Wait, no, I I said that wrong.
[03:39] It shows that even eight drinks a night, especially of the drink four loco, can make you functionally immortal, but also immoral. Scott.
[03:51] >> Did you ever get into the for loco back in the day? in the day? >> Ah, not really. No, I missed that face. >> you're a fucking loser. >> Yeah, it's true. Guys, for those who
[04:04] don't know, four loco was a combination of alcohol and caffeine, both of which was dosed at such a high rate that actually people ended up dying. Now, die from alcohol all the time. Just for loco took a bad rap. It did make you
[04:17] feel like you were simultaneously completely inebriated and shooting out retrospect, that's a really bad combination of feelings. >> True. Listen, but we had Jagger bombs, which was the Red Bull Jäger. So, that
[04:29] was the same situation. They decided, why not more of this? All right, all jokes aside, let's see what the study was all about and then we can talk about how and why it's moved at least my personal views on alcohol consumption to
[04:42] some meaningful extent. And it really is a meaningful extent. In June of 2026, just very recently, the Alcohol Intake and Health Study was published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, oddly specific
[04:56] journal name. This was not a new randomized trial. Instead, it was a massive evidence synthesis and risk modeling project commissioned by the United States government. See,
[05:10] the researchers reviewed the highest quality epidemiological evidence available. That is a ton of use cases all at the same time. And they examined alcohol and its
[05:22] effects across many disease categories all at the same time. They modeled looked at a bunch of stuff. They looked many drinks you drink on average, when do you croak? They looked at cancer
[05:37] risk, cardiovascular disease like heart disease, liver disease, diabetes, dementia, stroke, and disability adjusted life years where it's like, yeah, you're still alive, but you're up. Very
[05:52] question that earlier alcohol studies often avoided, which is like when you add all the health outcomes together. Is moderate drinking a net positive, a net
[06:04] there was still some mystery around this. Here were the results. The study found no clear evidence that alcohol provides a net health benefit at any level of intake. I'm going to say that again. The study found no clear evidence
[06:19] that alcohol provides a net health benefit at any level of intake. This challenges the older idea that moderate drinking, especially wine, is somehow good for you. Alcohol may have some favorable associations with certain
[06:33] outcomes. It may marginally reduce the risk of eskeemic heart disease, eskeemic stroke, type 2 diabetes, dementia, or cognitive decline in some analyses.
[06:45] And it can enhance HDL related lipid markers and platelet aggregation factors or even clotting related outcomes. But here's the problem. All of those little
[06:57] mini benefits added together did not translate into an overall protective effect. Which means, yeah, good stuff's happening, but more bad stuff's happening to cancel it out. Because of
[07:10] that, health risk appeared to rise progressively as alcohol intake increased and around seven drinks per week was associated with only modest increases in overall risk, but was already associated
[07:26] with modest increases in overall risk. We're going to remember that for later. Above roughly one drink per day, risk became more noticeable and more noticeable and more noticeable. Still, the relationship appeared dose
[07:38] responsive. more alcohol generally meant more risk. While that's true by itself is a good thing to know, anytime you have something that the more of it you give someone, the worse that person gets, you
[07:51] can at least to some extent mechanistically infer like this is a bad thing, right? There may not be a good case for like, well, a little bit of this thing is good. That's possible, but less likely if just in one straight
[08:03] line, the more you get, the worse it is. 14 drinks per week emerged in this statistical analysis as an especially important threshold. At 14 drinks per week, the study estimated about one alcohol attributable death per 25 people
[08:20] over a lifetime. That risk is larger than many people would have assumed for moderate drinking. It's a serious risk. Cancer risk, in addition, appeared to rise even at relatively low alcohol intakes. Breast cancer was one of the
[08:33] key cancers linked to alcohol intake. Colorectal cancer risk also increased with alcohol intake. Essophageal cancer was another major concern and pancreatic cancer risk which is really dangerous was also elevated in the analysis.
[08:50] Cancer risk generally increased as drinking increased. The study did not claim alcohol is harmful for every single health endpoint because it wasn't. Low to moderate drinking was associated with lower risk
[09:02] of eskeemic heart disease in some analyses. As I mentioned, it was also type 2 diabetes, and dementia risk in some analyses. But again, these possible benefits were outweighed by increased risk from cancer, liver disease,
[09:16] injuries, and overall mortality. So, this all sounds pretty bad because detection threshold for net bad things happen to you, that's like one drink a
[09:28] day, which kind of means that alcohol is just bad for you overall at any dose. And when two drinks a day, 14 drinks a week, bends up even further in nastiness, then like man, you're probably on to something. And that is
[09:43] that something is that alcohol kind of sucks. Now, these are just correlations. This is not an experimental randomized control trial. So we can't 100% infer that alcohol causes these problems that it is associated with. In order to help
[09:57] learn a bit more about if it's actually causing these problems, let's have a think about the mechanistic inference. In other words, if we just knew how alcohol affected human physiology, but it's zero actual effect data, actual
[10:10] epidemiological data on what it does, would we guess that alcohol is good for you? maybe a mixed bag or probably bad for you. Like if someone is accused of murder and we don't have direct evidence of them doing the crime, but the
[10:22] damning. If we look at who they are as a person, are they seemingly the vicious killer type or the harmless grandmother type? So, which one of those is alcohol? All right, here's the mechanistic inference on alcohol and health.
[10:36] Ethanol is metabolized into acid aldahhide, a reactive compound that can aldahhide, a reactive compound that can damage DNA, damage proteins, and damage cellular repair systems themselves. Mechanistically, you'd predict higher
[10:49] cancer risk and faster tissue wear over time, knowing nothing else about alcohol. The liver, it turns out, does much of the work in processing alcohol. And that process shifts liver metabolism towards fat accumulation and stress over
[11:02] time. And over longer terms, this predicts fatty liver. It predicts inflammation. It predicts fibrosis and potentially even cerosis of the liver. Alcohol metabolism can generate reactive oxygen species that damage lipids,
[11:17] proteins, DNAs, and mitochondria. Chronic exposure to something like this would therefore be expected to increase inflammation, cellular aging, and cancer risk. And of course, we have evidence that it does every single one of these.
[11:29] Alcohol may make people feel sleepy, but it also tends to fragment sleep and reduce the quality of your sleep massively. Over time, lower sleep quality predicts worse recovery, worse cognition, worse mood regulation, worse
[11:43] glucose control, and worse appetite regulation. Jesus Christ, that's like regulation. Jesus Christ, that's like worse everything. Alcohol alters GABA, which is a neurotransmitter in the brain, glutamate, dopamine, and opioid
[11:55] signaling as well. and repeated exposures would be expected to increase tolerance, increase withdrawal risk, increase anxiety rebound after you're not drunk anymore, impair learning, and dependence risk in susceptible people.
[12:08] So, even if alcohol caused no tissue damage, intoxication also increases very crazy risk-taking behavior, falls, driving errors, you could say, the probability you'll get into fights, and other acute harms. And it turns out,
[12:22] that do really poorly in alcohol don't die from the chronic shit. They die from like drunk driving or walking into traffic or falling into an open sewer or some crazy shit like that. Repeated drinking basically causes repeated
[12:35] windows where bad decisions become way easier to make. But it's not over. Alcohol can increase estrogen exposure and estrogen signaling is relevant to breast cancer biology. So if you're in that demographic, it increases that
[12:48] probability mechanistically. Regular alcohol intake would be expected to raise breast cancer risk. Alcohol can also irritate the gastrointestinal tract and increase gut permeability, allowing more inflammatory bacterial products
[13:03] into circulation, bacteria in the blood. That's not good. This predicts more inflammation, and more immune dysregulation. All of which have been confirmed by the research to be caused by alcohol. Low doses of alcohol may
[13:18] improve some markers related to the good cholesterol, HDL, clotting or eskeemic cholesterol, HDL, clotting or eskeemic risk. But alcohol can also raise blood drinking situations, worsen sleep, increase arrhythmia risk, and damage
[13:31] cardiac muscles at higher intakes. So, it does some really cool mini things, but they're overwhelmed by the big thing. Alcohol provides seven calories per gram, by the way, which is somewhere between carbs and fats. Can massively
[13:43] reduce inhibition around food choices. So mechanistically that would predict that higher body fat risk is a result from alcohol, especially when drinking Scott, name me one time that drinking is
[13:56] not paired with high calorie foods. And >> come on, I just eat pure vegetables when the time like, "Hey, if I drink but eat super healthy, is that like just as going to do that. You're not going to reach in to get broccoli. You're going
[14:10] to reach in to get fries. Get out of here." Alcohol in addition can interfere with sleep, hydration, glycogen restoration, protein quality. So like a rare small drink
[14:22] probably does a little, but repeated or binge intakes look bad for hypertrophy to get lean, if you're trying to be good at sports, man, alcohol is the opposite at sports, man, alcohol is the opposite of the correct answer. Muscle mass is a
[14:37] very health protective and alcohol reduces your muscle mass. Now mechanistically it does matter about the pattern of drinking because the same weekly amount may be worse if it repeatedly disrupts sleep, training,
[14:50] liver metabolism and tissue repair. So mechanistically drinking pattern mechanistically drinking pattern matters. Here's the reality. Your worst option is to have seven drinks on a Saturday if you're going to have seven
[15:03] drinks per week. That binge is going to be really bad for your health. kind of counterintuitively, your next best option or next worst option is to drink one drink per day, seven days a week. The consistency kills you. Then
[15:19] probably your best option is to pulse it in. If you're going to drink, you drink one to two drinks on two to three separate days with distinct alcohol-free days. That means it's not too consistent to you up. It's not too much at any one
[15:33] those. Does that mean that's good for you? No, it's just less bad for you. All right, so what's the verdict? With this strong of data and mechanistic inference, to me, the smart idea right now seems to be that the less you drink,
[15:47] in most cases, the better. Kind of troublingly for people that like moderate drinking, even one to two drinks a few times a week might be worse for you, for your health, notably than no drinking at all. That's my current
[16:02] default take. But caution because this could reverse again. Technically, even though this is a big study, it's just one study. A later deeper analysis might find that actually one to two drinks a day still goes to neutral or that for
[16:17] certain ages, genders, ethnicities, or specific genotypes of people, alcohol is even worse than we thought in moderation. So, we have to be careful not to run too far the other way and end up assuming that alcohol is for sure
[16:32] forever a terrible thing. So, here's my nuanced verdict. Taking all this into account, my verdict here is that while having a few drinks here and there is probably just not a big deal, no matter how you slice it, in the grand scheme,
[16:47] the less you can drink probably the better. Okay, so what should you actually do with this information? First, if you don't drink, don't start. reason to start drinking alcohol. The whole the doctor recommended a glass of
[17:02] a fossil from the Jurassic era of epidemiology. That doctor, you know, might as well just smoke in the office like they used to. That was so cool, Scott. Wasn't that cool when doctors smoked with patients around?
[17:14] It's not good for you, but it's really cool. Secondly, if you currently drink very rarely, like a few drinks a month, I probably wouldn't worry about it too much. At that level, the health signal is probably tiny compared to whether you
[17:28] train, sleep, eat well, stay lean, manage stress, and just don't drive your manage stress, and just don't drive your car into a Wendy's. Like crashing into a starting to eat burgers and fries off the line until the cops come put you
[17:41] down. For all of us, that's probably a good For all of us, that's probably a good thing. Third, if you do drink one to two drinks a day because you think that it's good for you, I would strongly
[17:53] reconsider that. The most updated view is probably that you are not buying a small amount of health risk in exchange for relaxation, pleasure, ritual, or social bonding, which if that stuff matters to you, hey, rock on. But
[18:08] if not, or you can do another safer drug or gasp chill out drug-free. That's probably the better choice because a lot of people say, "Hey, like one or two least it's neutral and I love to do it." And it's probably not good for you and
[18:22] it's probably not even neutral. It's a little bit bad. But knowing that, you can make some better choices. Fourth, if alcohol helps you socialize, date, relax, or enjoy life, you don't have to hear this as you're a bad person and
[18:35] must now become a totaling monk. Just understand the trade-off. Doesn't have to be all sparkling water from here on in. Alcohol is probably not a health supplement. It is a recreational drug with calories in it, sleep disruption,
[18:50] and some decent tissue toxicity as well. Fifth, for fit folks who really care about their fitness, the biggest practical target is probably to avoid binge drinking. Seven drinks on a Saturday is probably much worse than one
[19:04] to two drinks a couple of nights because of huge spikes like this mean worse sleep, worse decisions, worse training the next day, more acute toxicity, and like, you know, why did I text my ex last night with Lord of the Rings
[19:17] quotes, which honestly will probably get you laid, but it's your ex, so that shit you laid, but it's your ex, so that shit is on you. Sixth, alcohol near bedtime, and this part really sucks, is probably one of the worst placements of alcohol
[19:31] throughout the day. But when you drink in the morning, people call you a degenerate and tell you you're fired from work. It's absurd, right? I'm just trying to avoid sleep disruptions, you guys. That's why I'm drinking at work.
[19:43] Now, it might help you fall asleep, but it tends to make sleep quality worse. And for people like you trying to get jacked, lean, healthy, and mentally sharp, sleep is basically a legal super serum. So putting alcohol late at night
[19:58] unfortunately the wrongest time to drink alcohol. Seventh, don't put alcohol around your hardest training sessions if you can avoid it. If you have a brutal
[20:10] powerlifting session or weightlifting session or a huge hypertrophy session or a BJJ session or Muay Thai session, that is probably not the night to get smashed before that session. Be fresh for when you need to go your hardest.
[20:24] Eighth, if you drink, try to put it on lower stakes days. Ideally, drink farther away from hard training, farther away from bedtime, and not the day before when you need elite cognition, hard training, or
[20:38] even really emotional stability. Three drinks during happy hour after work on Friday, where Saturdays off of work and training, for example, can be a way to do it. Dude, it's Do you know how many people on Fridays and Saturdays are like
[20:52] >> Oh, yeah. >> Woodwards of they like sit out there. It's crazy. >> Yeah, man. Next, account for the calories, guys. Alcohol is 7 calories per gram. But the
[21:05] bigger issue is that it often shows up with nachos, pizza, fries, and like a just a giant misunderstanding. And do greedy evil capitalists that maintain our fashion industry and fitness and
[21:19] our fashion industry and fitness and food industries, whatever, big food? And so, a lot of times, alcohol is about making sure that you don't fall off the making sure that you don't fall off the wagon. and count your drinks calories.
[21:31] Next, if you're dieting for fat loss, alcohol is usually a very bad bargain. It costs calories. It increases hunger and food impulsivity for most people. It
[21:43] worsens sleep. It can make the next day's training worse. Likely will. It can make the next day's steps harder to get because you're lazier. That's like a already white knuckling a deficit. So, I would just say don't even bother.
[21:58] If you are bulking, alcohol is still not automatically a great thing. Yes, you recovery, sleep, digestion, nutrient partitioning, and training quality still matter. I'm bulking is not a magic spell that turns tequila into creatine,
[22:12] unfortunately. Uh though I do, Scott, they have like a protein vodka, don't >> Oh, do they? >> They do. It's really It just makes me worst. I'm the worst Russian in history, and vodka all makes me throw up.
[22:25] >> Next. If you want to keep alcohol in your life, a good default is this. Fewer total drinks, fewer heavier drinking episodes, more alcohol-free days. I know
[22:37] that's basically a no. Like literally, it's the less the better. Look, something like one to two drinks on one to three days per week is probably much everything up for one glorious liver ambush on the weekend. Catch your liver
[22:52] now, big homie. liver is like, "Oh my god, I'm just trying to clean your blood." And you start bashing it. That's basically what drinking is. Next, choose your drinks strategically. Lower calorie drinks, drinks that have like diet soda
[23:06] mixed in, slower sipping, alternating with water, and eating protein richch food beforehand can make the whole thing less damaging to your physique and to less damaging to your physique and to your next day. Next, don't confuse less
[23:18] bad with good. A glass of wine with dinner is probably less bad than figuring out what the's going on right after. But it's still not good. Does not after. But it's still not good. Does not make wine a longevity elixir.
[23:33] Here's the best practical summary. If you don't drink, great. If you drink rarely, probably no huge deal. If you drink moderately because you think it's healthy, probably stop thinking and probably stop doing that. If you drink
[23:46] Avoid binges. Protect your sleep and be honest that it's a pleasure trade-off, not some kind of health move. So, the new alcohol advice is not panic, though that's always good advice in my opinion. I have a panic disorder. It's also not
[24:00] drink red wine and like live forever cuz man, Scott, remember in the ' 90s, bro, ah, it's good for you. And that that friend you had that was a wino drunk who "Red wine?" And you're like, "I don't think that's the case for you, bro." But
[24:13] he's dead now, so no worries. It's more like this. Alcohol is probably worse for you than we thought. Less drinking is probably better than more drinking. And if you still want some in your life, treat it like dessert. A very unhealthy
[24:27] dessert, not like medicine. Anyway, guys, believe it or not, I was 12 beers like to get ecological when I record these videos. How did I do? See you guys
[24:39] these videos. How did I do? See you guys next time.