Alcohol is a Poison that Improves Your Health
The concept of hormesis changes how we think about dangerous things
Alcohol is a poison and yet alcohol can improve your health. Let’s be clearer. At high enough doses, we know that alcohol can kill you. At lower doses, the available epidemiological evidence suggests that alcohol can have beneficial effects on your health.
How can this be? The principle of hormesis states that the biological effect of low-dose stressors can be positive while the effect at high doses can be negative. In other words, there’s a non-linear response to the stressor. Or, as famously stated by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: “What does not kill me makes me stronger.”
What are some other examples of hormesis? Too much exercise can be harmful; some exercise is better than none. Periodically fighting off common infections, such as colds, keeps your immune system healthy and ready to fight off deadlier diseases. Even water follows this pattern. Drink no water and you’ll die of dehydration. A bit of water keeps you healthy. Too much water and you can die from hyponatremia—consuming too much water while not getting enough electrolytes. There’s some evidence that people exposed to low doses of radiation get cancer less often than those at the two extremes.
If this principle holds for exogenous physical stressors, perhaps it also applies in different realms, such as economics, politics, and sociology.
I started thinking about this after talking to a good friend who was feeling pessimistic about the state of America. Based on what we see in the news every day, he was concerned that we are losing our great country. And yet, based on the principle of hormesis, perhaps it’s good that we face dangerous and harmful ideas and perhaps we need such challenges to keep from losing our great country. Bad ideas in low doses might be what keeps our country healthy.
Tariffs are economic poison. Does the principle of hormesis hold for tariffs? Perhaps President Trump’s tariffs are beneficial in the aspect that our “intellectual immune system” needs to have periodic stressors to keep our defenses strong and active. By regularly having to explain why high tariffs are harmful, economists keep their economic arguments sharp. Facing tariffs occasionally may be exactly what we need to help keep tariffs at bay over the long term.
Socialism is economic and political poison. Personally, when college students advocate for socialism, I wish they’d shut up or learn more about the subject. When has socialism ever worked? Hasn’t socialism generally walked hand in hand with poverty and political oppression? And yet maybe we need young people to say stupid things to remind us why such things are stupid.
Affirmative action is just racism and sexism by the “good guys” for a supposedly good cause. If racism and sexism are bad, aren’t they bad when any group has the power to exercise them? But maybe we need proponents of affirmative action to keep our defenses active to prevent us from spiraling into endemic racism and sexism.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has not, and almost certainly never will, show that food colorings such as FD&C Red No. 3 are dangerous at the doses people typically consume. And yet, hypothetically, if he did, the best recommendation from public health authorities might be to recommend the regular consumption of small doses of foods containing red dye, such as candy corn and Swedish fish. Instead of banning such food dyes, Kennedy should sing their praises.
To the extent that hormesis is an accurate description of a natural phenomenon, it makes our life more difficult because we need to factor in the agent and the dose of the agent. We can’t just rely on identifying something that kills people at high doses, such as radiation, and then warn people against any exposure.
I know a woman who follows a strict diet of eating only the healthiest foods. You’ll find her at the natural food store stuffing her shopping cart with organic foods with “correct” ingredients from “good” food manufacturers. You will never find her at McDonalds or In-N-Out. And yet she’s one of the least healthy people I know. Maybe she would be sick regardless of what she ate. Maybe “healthy” food isn’t always so healthy. Maybe she hasn’t had enough nutritional stressors and would benefit from a fast-food burger, fries, and a large Coke. I doubt it would make her any sicker. Maybe she could experience some fun by enjoying what the other half eats.
What’s the conclusion here? Find some stressors in life, but make sure the stresses are small enough to handle and give yourself enough time between stressors for your mind and body to heal and gain strength. Stated differently, we should practice moderation in all things, an ancient concept popularized by Aristotle and Socrates. Enjoy a long walk, a helping of broccoli, a few pasture-raised eggs, a glass of wine, whole-grain bread, and the next day a greasy burger and onion rings. Bon appétit.