From http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2014332,00.html

One of the most contentious issues in the vast literature about alcohol consumption has been the consistent finding that those who don't drink actually tend to die sooner than those who do. The standard Alcoholics Anonymous explanation for this finding is that many of those who show up as abstainers in such research are actually former hard-core drunks who had already incurred health problems associated with drinking.

But a new paper in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research suggests that — for reasons that aren't entirely clear — abstaining from alcohol does actually tend to increase one's risk of dying even when you exclude former drinkers. The most shocking part? Abstainers' mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers.

Moderate drinking, which is defined as one to three drinks per day, is associated with the lowest mortality rates in alcohol studies. Moderate alcohol use (especially when the beverage of choice is red wine) is thought to improve heart health, circulation and sociability, which can be important because people who are isolated don't have as many family members and friends who can notice and help treat health problems.

Here's the meat of the research:

The researchers (a six-member team led by psychologist Charles Holahan of the University of Texas at Austin) found that over a 20-year period, mortality rates were highest for those who had never been drinkers, second-highest for heavy drinkers and lowest for moderate drinkers.

The sample of those who were studied included individuals between ages 55 and 65 who had had any kind of outpatient care in the previous three years. The 1,824 participants were followed for 20 years. One drawback of the sample: a disproportionate number, 63%, were men. Just over 69% of the never-drinkers died during the 20 years, 60% of the heavy drinkers died and only 41% of moderate drinkers died.

Does this make you rethink taxes levied on things that are bad for you if new studies seem to pop up that challenge traditional, conservative common knowledge we take as granted because it's what we've always known?

I mean this is just one article with a contrary viewpoint, but if common knowledge tells us drinking is unhealthy and therefore needs to be taxed to ensure people are discouraged from indulging in this behavior, and then science later tells us we were wrong, then what does that say about our constant meddling in shaping society through reward and punishment? Sin taxes are punishment for doing things commonly held as being harmful to one's self, while rewards are given to behavior society wants to encourage such as birth and marriage. Drinking and smoking are taxed because they're unhealthy, but soon so can certain foods like fast food and soda.

In this instance, common knowledge would tell us fats and meats are unhealthy while diets rich with simple and complex carbohydrates are good, but it's also been shown that people on ketogenic diets such as low carb diets have lowered cholesterol and triglycerides and in some cases Diabetic symptoms have been shown to disappear completely. That means if you eat a fatty burger patty without the bread you could be benefiting from the ketones even though the monolithic sin tax would be levied against you because common knowledge says otherwise.

How about this? Some have suggested parents could be attributing to asthma in their children by keeping things too clean. Hand sanitizers, alcohol wipes and bleaching the tub may kill germs and bacteria, but without these boogeymen in our bodies when we're young our immune systems may attack our good cells instead. Or so it's been alleged. What if keeping a dirtier house was a lifestyle choice for parents? Would it be fair to label them as unfit and take away their kids over the cleanliness of their home? Common knowledge would say yes. But then again reported cases of asthma are up in the new generation of children, aren't they?

Fatty, sugary, unhealthy food for thought.