Alcohol is healthy because it can reduce the risk of type II diabetes.

The argument

Proponents of this position point to a specific physiological pathway rather than to a general claim about wellbeing. Type II diabetes is a disease in which the body has difficulty regulating its glucose, or sugar, levels. That regulation is carried out by insulin, which signals to the body's cells that circulating glucose should be taken up and used or stored. When those cells respond poorly to the signal, that is, when insulin sensitivity falls, glucose remains in the bloodstream, the body compensates by producing more insulin, and over time the regulatory system degrades. This loss of sensitivity is the mechanism by which the disease develops. The argument then connects alcohol to that mechanism through adiponectin, a hormone that improves insulin sensitivity. Alcohol has been found to increase adiponectin levels. If a higher level of adiponectin means cells respond more readily to insulin, and responding readily to insulin is what prevents the regulatory failure that constitutes type II diabetes, then raising adiponectin acts on the pathway by which the disease arises rather than on its symptoms. Two features of this reasoning are worth drawing out. The first is that the claim is about moderate consumption: the proposed benefit is attached to a hormonal response at modest doses, not to alcohol in quantity. The second is that the argument is comparative rather than absolute. It does not assert that drinking makes a person healthy in every respect, but that on this particular measure the person who drinks moderately faces a lower chance of developing type II diabetes than they otherwise would. Proponents therefore hold that, because moderate alcohol consumption can decrease the chances of type II diabetes through this pathway, drinking alcohol is healthy.

Premises

Counter-arguments

-This has only been observed from correlational studies, not proven in experiments. -The health drawbacks of alcohol outweigh the lowered chance for type II diabetes.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Nothing here is disputed and nothing here is about alcohol: the premise describes the disease and sets up the mechanism without contributing anything to the conclusion. [Rejecting P2] A proposed mechanism is not an outcome, and the counter is right that the evidence is correlational — studies comparing moderate drinkers with non-drinkers place former drinkers and people abstaining for health reasons in the comparison group, which biases the result in the direction the premise wants. Even granting the association, an effect on one condition at one level of intake does not make drinking healthy; the conclusion quietly drops the word "moderate" and everything else alcohol affects.