Political Memes

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 5 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Is red wine still good for you. I'm sure that was a thing at one point.

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[–] sunbunman@sh.itjust.works 14 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Heresay, but last I heard the reason red wine being good came about is due to most of the people who had red wine every night were better off financially and data was skewed from a class perspective. Basically having money is good for your health.

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[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

The “French Paradox” also played into this. We love the idea that some group of special people have had all this figured out for centuries and if we just follow their traditional ways, we’ll live forever. But if they happen to exhibit longevity, it’s more often genetics or other factors besides something we desperately want to believe, like booze is healthy. I wonder if the French Paradox was amplified by the oldest person in the world being, for years, a French woman who smoked like a chimney.

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[–] Naz@sh.itjust.works 1 point 11 months ago

That's funny in a really dark way

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[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago*

There was a little back and forth between different studies on that which is the way science is supposed to work, but every twist and turn was dragged out and amplified by the fact that we WANT to believe 2 glasses of wine a day is good for us. That kind of finding gets spread far and wide. And when other scientists try to replicate the studies and find they are exaggerated, we give them a hard time for flip flopping.

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[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

If you ignore the fad diets, it’s not that bad. Science can change on specific points over time but it’s been pretty uncontroversial for many decades that a diet of fresh foods with plenty of fruits and vegetables and a moderate intake of meat and fish, with a minimum of sugar and junk food, is good for you.

It’s just that occasionally something comes along that we really want to be true, like wine is healthy or all-meat is actually good because the cavemen did it. When the finding is something we want to be true, we’ll blow a minor, flawed study all out of proportion and keep talking about it years after it’s debunked.