Someone recently told me that the link between alcohol and reduced coronary disease is purely observational, and that therefore we should not recommend alcohol as part of the “Mediterranean” diet. I didn’t want to argue, but you could say much the same about smoking and cardiovascular disease. The evidence of benefit from alcohol is solid, robust, and repeatedly found wherever you look, but almost impossible to replicate experimentally for the very good reason that people who drink do so as part of their daily pleasure. Yet the several hundred authors of this paper have tried to do something even more impossible: make this evidence disappear by a Mendelian hat trick. I am completely baffled that they should (a) want to do it and (b) think this is good enough: “Individuals with a genetic variant associated with non-drinking and lower alcohol consumption had a more favourable cardiovascular profile and a reduced risk of coronary heart disease than those without the genetic variant. This suggests that reduction of alcohol consumption, even for light to moderate drinkers, is beneficial for cardiovascular health.” No it doesn’t.Read him every week and your life will be better.,
Some twitter lover for Lehman
If you are a doctor on twitter and don't follow @RichardLehman1 then you are doing it wrong.
— Joel Topf (@kidney_boy) August 27, 2013
Once again @RichardLehman1 shows why he is the smartest doc and best writer on twitter.
http://t.co/NHs61hZIyb
— Joel Topf (@kidney_boy) January 6, 2014
"Richard Lehman’s journal review—14 July 2014" http://t.co/ucSWVTgATS #FOAMed one day this man will stop writing and I will be sad
— Andy Neill (@AndyNeill) July 15, 2014
