MANGAN on the benefits of alcohol.

The so-called “French paradox” purports to explain the fact that the French, depsite eating lots of saturated fat, have low rates of heart disease, and this is allegedly because they drink red wine. . . .

There is no French paradox, for the simple reason that dietary saturated fat is not the cause of heart disease. . . .

In order to prove cause and effect with regard to alcohol and health, you would need a randomized controlled trial in which people were randomized to an alcohol group and an abstainer group, and then see what health outcomes are like years down the road. To my knowledge, such a study has not been done, and seems unlikely to ever be done. So for now all we have is an association, and I’m skeptical that alcohol causes better health, however much I’d really like to believe it.

But is there any evidence, contra to what I’ve just laid out, that alcohol produces benefits to health? Yes, there is, in animals.