"...among 100 women who have less than one drink per week, about 17 will develop an alcohol-related cancer."
How does this insane number get unnoticed for so long. I really find it hard to believe. < One drink per day more dangerous than smoking a pack per day?
Edit: Ok, looked into the reference and it's a bit more subtle, though I can't find numbers for people not consuming anything, allthough one would think they'd get 0% alcohol related cancers.
"For example, a study of 226,162 individuals reported
that the absolute risk of developing any alcohol-related cancer over the lifespan of
a woman increases from approximately 16.5% (about 17 out of every 100 individuals)
for those who consume less than one drink per week, to 19.0% (19 out of every 100
individuals) for those who consume one drink daily on average to approximately
21.8% (about 22 out of every 100 individuals) for those who consume two drinks
daily on average (Figure 5). That is about five more women out of 100 who would
have developed cancer due to a higher level of alcohol consumption."
Pretty significant, although "less than one drink per day" is a bit vague.
> allthough one would think they'd get 0% alcohol related cancers
I assume "alcohol related" in this context means that alcohol consumption increases the risk for those types of cancers, but you might still get those types of cancers even if you have never consumed any alcohol. And "less than once drink per week" is assumed to be almost the same as never consuming any alcohol at all, so 17% is the risk for women who never consume any alcohol.
Ah yes that must be it. 17% of women get these cancers, which are cancers that you have a higher risk of when drinking, but in this case they are not caused by drinking. I though < 1 per day is still drinking 6 special Belgian beers of 8-10 % alcohol on a Saturday so I thought, that's still quite something. At least I'd be heavily hung over the next day. I expected the baseline to just be "non-drinking".
I imagine it's because they count any cancer that could be caused by heavy-drinking as an "alcohol-related cancer", regardless of whether it was actually caused by alcohol or not.
How did they establish causality, or is it just a correlation potentially resulting from hidden variables? E.g., I do not know many smokers that do not touch alcohol, but plenty of non smoking abstinates. I also know plenty of sedentary obese heavy drinkers, where a higher percentage of the teetotal lot are more health obsessed in other ways.
They can't really. This data is almost always self-reported. They can attempt to eliminate common confounds but the data is very noisy. People have a lot of bias and inaccuracies when reporting the primary data. Even questions like "how many cigarettes per day/week/month/year do you smoke?" is subject to enormous inaccuracies. And the more questions re confounds which are asked, the more the noise, and the lower the number of questionnaires returned. And no matter how many confounds are included in the questionnaires, there are likely a thousand more which also matter. It's a fairly major issue in health research, and why we so often see headlines with conflicting findings every few years. See research into the health of eggs, for example. One should be highly skeptical of correlative health evidence at this point (and this is what most of the clickbait studies are). Instead, try to focus on the causative research where they identify specific genes or chemical mechanisms which cause outcomes. This is much more difficult, of course, and sparse.
I wish there was more causative research where nutrition was artificially changed in a highly managed population. For example in a prison or military barracks.
I suspect there's a lot we could learn about the health of eggs, for example, if we could just pay some prisoners to eat varying quantities of them for 20 years, then look at the development of their health.
If I recall correctly (and I might not), the idea that moderate drinking is healthy came from a faulty study where people who didn't drink at all were less healthy.
But the people who didn't drink at all often didn't drink because they self-excluded because of alcoholism or disease.
They weren't less healthy because they didn't drink, they didn't drink because they were less healthy.
I think you're broadly correct. But it's not one "faulty study". Every attempt to do a broad population-based study of alcohol use vs health outcomes finds this effect.
Controlling for why people don't drink is difficult to do without introducing bias. So there are still two competing theories: either the non-drinkers were a less healthy cohort to begin with, or moderate drinking has net health benefits.
The current WHO and IARC guidance is that there's no safe level of alcohol consumption that doesn't affect health and that alcohol is a clear carcinogen.
> I don't know how that could have health benefits.
Well, it doesn't seem so far fetched. Moderate alcohol use could definitely have a stress reducing effect and stress has well documented health impacts. And social drinking could easily have beneficial second order effects from social interaction.
Who knows if this is what's happening, but it's easy to spitball some benefits.
It's not the alcohol (ethanol) that has the health benefits, but the solution it's in. I think it applies mainly to wine, which has a bunch of anti-oxidants
That's true of course. But I also think for practical arguments like this, we don't need exact science.
There's a good theory why moderate drinking is still unhealthy (self-exclusion of non-drinkers). There's no proven theory as to why moderate drinking should somehow increase health.
So while it's not perfect science, for the practical purpose of making life decisions, that's enough for me.
There's a pretty clear theory of alcohol as social lubricant, and people with more active social lives having better mental health and slower cognitive decline in old age.
There's also a surprisingly strong link between alcohol use and exercise, that persists even when you look at "heavy drinking levels" [0].
In fact, given the fact that alcohol use has such a high effect on certain medical conditions, but such a low impact on all-cause mortality, you can be certain that alcohol use has some strong positive health effects. And it's down to individual circumstances whether the positives are likely to outweigh the negatives.
> There's a pretty clear theory of alcohol as social lubricant, and people with more active social lives having better mental health and slower cognitive decline in old age.
Sure, but you can have an active social life without consuming alcohol and have the benefits of not drinking AND having an active social life.
> There's also a surprisingly strong link between alcohol use and exercise, that persists even when you look at "heavy drinking levels" [0].
Couldn't this be the same fallacy? i.e. the people who don't drink self-exclude from drinking AND exercise because they're sick or injured or whatever?
Or could it be that people who are more active in general just do both things more?
I wish the popular and completely absurd phrase "drugs and alcohol" would become outdated.
Somehow alcohol always gets separate consideration and categorisation, while most people would laugh if asked "is moderate tobacco/meth/ecstasy/whatever use healthy?"
>Somehow alcohol always gets separate consideration and categorisation, while most people would laugh if asked "is moderate tobacco/meth/ecstasy/
The "drugs" of alcohol and caffeine are more deeply integrated into public social life. Wine is mentioned in the Bible. Beer is sold at family outings like baseball games. The White House serves alcohol at official state dinners. President Obama had the famous "beer summit" https://www.google.com/search?q=Obama+beer+summit&tbm=isch
Also, the existence of alcohol is caused by common natural processes. E.g. leaving apples or pears out on the kitchen counter too long and it naturally ferments which creates alcohol. I remember leaving some old pears in the kitchen and they eventually smelled like alcohol. I ate the pears and they definitely tasted like alcohol. The point is, alcohol can come into existence without even doing anything.
In contrast, the White House isn't handing out crystal meth or heroin at state dinners and there aren't any natural decaying processes that turns random food into ecstasy. Marijuana is natural but it isn't culturally accepted by the public. (President Clinton's "Yes, but I didn't inhale.")
Alcohol/caffeine have a lot of acceptable functional uses that the other drug categories don't have which is why society continues to talk about them as a separate class.
This is just the explanation of why it's "drugs and alcohol", and OP probably is well aware of that. The point is there's an argument to be made that even though history shaped this distinction it's harmful in some ways and progress should be made towards removing this partcular distinction and make it one based on science, e.g. a more fair classification based on toxicity/negative effects.
>and proghress should be made towards removing the distinction. [...] history shaped this distinction
The point I'm trying to make is that society can't make progress towards unifying alcohol into a category with fetanyl -- because society will continue to use alcohol in socially acceptable functions.
It's not just about the past. It's this ongoing use of alcohol that's very different from fetanyl that will continue to keep alcohol as a separate category in the public's mind. Our future behaviors will keep reinforcing the separate categories in future discussions. Yes, you can scientifically unify "alcohol is a drug" together with "fetanyl is a drug" ... but our deep cultural integration with alcohol prevents society from doing that. E.g. Do we expect the bride of a future wedding in 2026 to choose which wine to serve at the reception? Yes and behaviors like that means we'll continue to categorize alcohol as a separate thing from fetanyl in 2026. If the hired wedding planner tells the bride, "how can you order wine when it's in the same scientific category of toxic danger like fetanyl?!?", that planner will get fired.
> The point I'm trying to make is that society can't make progress towards unifying alcohol into a category with fetanyl -- because society will continue to use alcohol in socially acceptable functions.
Yes I get that point. But that doesn't mean rather simple 'semantic' measures could be taken to make it more obvious alcohol is not exactly healthy. Instead of 'person was under influence of alcohol and cocaine' or 'drugs including alohol', instead of just 'drugs and alcohol'.
That science should take into account it positive effects on society at large. it’s possible society wouldn’t exist without alcohol. There are customs about drinking with new partners (tribe leaders, business leaders) because until you see them with their shields down you can’t trust them.
There’s also a lot of joy people get. Removing that joy might be a net negative over all. It’s like another said, cupcakes, ice cream, candy, donuts are bad for you but people get joy from them so we just encourage moderation
while the special treatment of alcohol is due to cultural,historical and commercial reasons, from a toxicology point of view it makes sense to treat them all separately. But I agree with your sentiment.
As far as I understand, the aftereffects of alcohol are due to its poisonous effects on organs, receptors and neurons. Drugs act on receptors directly by binding to them or restricting binding.
I don't understand your distinction. Alcohol affects receptor binding. Drugs' aftereffects are due to their poisonous effects on organs, receptors and neurons.
It's poison. If it never existed and someone tried to bring it to market today it would never fly. Should have skull and crossbones on it. Makes about as much sense as huffing gasoline.
Sure, but so is society on our psychological health in general. Apparently, we're so anxious that a lot of us subconsciously feel we need to drink in order to just have an actual conversation.
Social anxiety is the true poison in society. Without it, we wouldn't drink nearly as much.
I have nuanced takes that don't agree with the take that I just wrote, but I find there to be a kernel of truth in it. I've fought social anxiety for years, and started out clubbing sober when I was 17. I did start drinking around 18 but mostly out of curiosity. It was only around the age of 30 that I really noticed that by then I did it to alleviate social anxiety. It caught me off-guard since my teenage self would scoff at the idea of it. I'd never need alcohol to alleviate my social anxiety, I'd just grit through it and talk to whomever I want. I think I just became a bit comfortable and soft. It's easy-ish for me to switch back though due to the reference experiences I have being a teen, dealing with social anxiety sober. So that's a huge blessing. Not everyone is that lucky.
It also has to assume the average, or even uneducated, person couldn't whip up a reasonably good batch of the stuff over a week's time on their own, given ordinary supplies and equipment found in their own home already. But that isn't true of this particular drug.
In Italy, cigarette packs carry shocking pictures of diseased lungs, tumors, and other severe health effects, yet they fail to deter smokers. It’s essentially a cultural problem.
The existing ones, sure - you get used to it. But for non-smokers, that's a visible indicator of what you're bringing on yourself if you start smoking, so it has a deterring value. It helps you to present an abstract idea into something palpable that you can't ignore that easily.
Something has deterred smokers: the overall rate of adults who smoke has fallen from 50% to 25% in the last 50 years [0] - the source gives measures by gender and birth cohort, but you can aggregate them any way you want to see a big drop off.
I have been thinking why not take similar actions against alcohol as with tobacco. Add warning labels, increase taxes to huge number. Maybe ban anything but 94% pure stuff. No more any type of flavourings like they did with menthol.
I've drank a lot of alcohol as a human and "irrelevant" is precisely how I'd describe it.
For scale context, the covid 19 vaccines killed almost as many people as alcohol yearly. Yet that one is "medicine" but alcohol is "poison"? Give me a break.
Of course there are morons who get killed by just about anything. Even water poisoning is a thing, and people HAVE died of it.
Sinners will die regardless of substance, because the wages of sin are death.
No worries, all the kids ditched alcohol a while ago and are on n2o these days. On my morning walks I see a few 3L+ tanks discarded around my block of flats, there are new ones almost every day
Alcohol is a toxin that your liver must work to break down, provides empty calories with no nutritional value, disrupts sleep quality, impairs judgment and coordination, and even moderate consumption increases risks of cancer, heart disease, and other health problems. Any perceived benefits are vastly outweighed by these inherent harms.
You have argued one half of the equation, and stated that the other side cannot possibly add up that high.
You've just replicated the "Watchmaker" argument of creationists: "Random chance can't account for these low probabilities that we can't yet quantified."
This newer work seems basically to be arguing that the effect on the lefthand size of the curve is because drinking alcohol is so common that people who drink nothing are likely to be in poor health already.
I remember the exploration of alcohol consumption stats from one of Michael Hobbes' podcasts and how hard it is to untangle both self-reporting and confounding factors. Like, the population of reported non-drinkers is dominated by both religious abstainers who may otherwise differ culturally from the broader population, and alcoholics who've needed to cut out drinking entirely
Class 1 just means "confirmed" with absolutely nothing stated about what the risk level is. You'd be hard pressed to convince me to make any decision based on that alone.
There is no amount of alcohol that is good for you. It is a toxin that only harms your body. The rising popularity and creativity of mocktails shows that people can still have a fun drink that doesn’t involve poisoning their body.
And if you use alcohol for social lubrication, you only screw yourself over by never learning how to truly socialize and let go of inhibition naturally.
If you dig a tiny bit into mixology, you'll notice the ludicrous amounts of sugar that goes into cocktails.
An espresso martini has 80% of your daily sugar intake. That's 25g of sugar. Moscow mule 75%, Sangria 70%. All of those in one single serving.
I'd wager most people don't stop at one drink.
Daiquiri has sugar. Espresso martini has sugar syrup. A gimlet has simple syrup. Irish coffee has sugar. Long Island Ice Tea has more sugar syrup than any single liquor. Mai Tai has simple syrup. Mojito has cane sugar.
Yes, drinking mai tai's (which are incredibly rare drinks, BTW) is like ... drinking soda pop. Way too much sugar. So are other cocktails - similar to soda pop, except consumed in quantities of 4-12 oz instead of the 12-24 oz servings of pop.
Arguing that alcohol is bad because many popular drinks have too much sugar is simply a bizarre take. It's like worrying about second-hand smoke from too much gun violence.
I was simply providing a counterpoint to the idea that mocktails contain too much sugar. My point was that (m|c)ocktails in general contain too much sugar, regardless of alcohol content.
Alcoholic wines also have massive range. Very dry ones do not have much, but once you get to medium and beyond they are in soft drink territory or even more...
I think normal cocktails can end up in similar place, especially if say juices are component.
> if you use alcohol for social lubrication, you only screw yourself over by never learning how to truly socialize and let go of inhibition naturally
That's probably the least true comment in this entire thread.
I'm not going to say alcohol is therapeutic, but it is considered a rite of passage the world over for a reason. For many it's their first time experiencing lowered inhibitions and handling adult consequences. That doesn't imply an addiction will follow, but it is very likely to expand their mind regarding what they believe about themselves and their identity. Those questions are at the heart of social anxiety.
I really don't know where society would be without alcohol. Probably much worse off. People would have their heads so far up their own asses they'd probably be even more anxious all the time.
I used to believe this, but tests reveal that the losses are only about 20-80%, depending on cooking style (pan frying removes the most; baking retains the most). I was very surprised.
OTOH, if you're eating tiramisu to get a buzz, you may be the world's most inefficient alcoholic ever.
More state sponsored propoganda to make us miserable. They don't like you having a few drinks with friends and speaking truths. It makes you hard to control and govern.
How does this insane number get unnoticed for so long. I really find it hard to believe. < One drink per day more dangerous than smoking a pack per day?
Edit: Ok, looked into the reference and it's a bit more subtle, though I can't find numbers for people not consuming anything, allthough one would think they'd get 0% alcohol related cancers.
"For example, a study of 226,162 individuals reported that the absolute risk of developing any alcohol-related cancer over the lifespan of a woman increases from approximately 16.5% (about 17 out of every 100 individuals) for those who consume less than one drink per week, to 19.0% (19 out of every 100 individuals) for those who consume one drink daily on average to approximately 21.8% (about 22 out of every 100 individuals) for those who consume two drinks daily on average (Figure 5). That is about five more women out of 100 who would have developed cancer due to a higher level of alcohol consumption."
Pretty significant, although "less than one drink per day" is a bit vague.