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The link between alcohol and breast cancer

motherjones.com

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Re: The link between alcohol and breast cancer

#21

Post by otempomores »

npsimons wrote: post #8
maxerickson wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article shows that there is good data. One of the more easily interpreted statistics given is that American women on average have a lifetime risk of developing breast cancer of about 12%, while women that consume 2-3 drinks per day have a lifetime risk of about 15%. It's a huge lever for public health to pull on, I guess individuals may not give much thought to moderate consumption.

> One of the more easily interpreted statistics given is that American women on average have a lifetime risk of developing breast cancer of about 12%, while women that consume 2-3 drinks per day have a lifetime risk of about 15%. I find this interesting. By all means, people should be entitled to informed consent and allowed to make their own choices. But only a 3% increase? And that's if you're consuming 2-3 drinks…

Are we getting fatophobic in here?

Re: The link between alcohol and breast cancer

#22

Post by sjg007 »

batty_alex wrote: post #20
forgotmypw wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The underlying "cause" of cancer is the cells reverting back to their ancient state of independence and non-cooperation, and all the fail-safes that keep this from happening failing. The reason for this happening is stress on the cells. And there are more and more things that can cause us cellular stress. It is a bit of information overload, but if you separate things into "my great-great-grandparents were exposed to…

There's history to suggest that alcohol was used as currency to pay workers in ancient times [1]. Alcohol has been with us for the long haul and has been available to our ancestors in large quantities for most of our history. It's almost engrained in our history. Not that it makes alcohol healthy but, I don't agree it's safe to just look back and say, "Yo, great-grand-papa could only afford to get wasted once a week…

All it means is that they survived long enough to reproduce to have your parents etc.. So look at the age they had them and how old they are when they died (or now). There is probably a selection event but also availability and potency have increased recently.

Re: The link between alcohol and breast cancer

#23

Post by sjg007 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #10

On the whole it seems a good article in raising awareness that alcohol doesn't just cause the almost universally known issues of mouth/throat cancers and liver cirrhosis but also is linked to greater risk of breast cancer [and presumably other not mentioned cancers]. However, it harps on around the suggestion that moderate drinking might be beneficial, and scathes that some studies included ex-drinkers in the "non-dr…

I thought alcohol related mouth/throat cancers are more due to a tobacco connection. I would also imagine HPV is a big source as well, although maybe studies have controlled for this variable.

Re: The link between alcohol and breast cancer

#24

Post by npsimons »

mrob wrote: post #12
npsimons wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the more easily interpreted statistics given is that American women on average have a lifetime risk of developing breast cancer of about 12%, while women that consume 2-3 drinks per day have a lifetime risk of about 15%. I find this interesting. By all means, people should be entitled to informed consent and allowed to make their own choices. But only a 3% increase? And that's if you're consuming 2-3 drinks…

>But only a 3% increase? 25% increase. 3 percentage points increase.

And if the risk was 1% naturally, but jumped to 2% with drinking, it would be a "100% increase". So?

Re: The link between alcohol and breast cancer

#25

Post by npsimons »

wkalt wrote: post #13
npsimons wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the more easily interpreted statistics given is that American women on average have a lifetime risk of developing breast cancer of about 12%, while women that consume 2-3 drinks per day have a lifetime risk of about 15%. I find this interesting. By all means, people should be entitled to informed consent and allowed to make their own choices. But only a 3% increase? And that's if you're consuming 2-3 drinks…

In relative terms that's a 25% increase.

In relative terms, going from 1% to 2% would be a 100% "increase".

Re: The link between alcohol and breast cancer

#26

Post by npsimons »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #11
npsimons wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the more easily interpreted statistics given is that American women on average have a lifetime risk of developing breast cancer of about 12%, while women that consume 2-3 drinks per day have a lifetime risk of about 15%. I find this interesting. By all means, people should be entitled to informed consent and allowed to make their own choices. But only a 3% increase? And that's if you're consuming 2-3 drinks…

Hormone based contraception apparently increases the risk of breast cancer by about 25% too. >And that's if you're consuming 2-3 drinks a day? Doesn't seem all that significant. // That was my take away, that's pretty heavy drinking, surely? Per your last para though, we can address more than one health situation at a time, and need to, it's not just USA with an obesity crisis; UK is deep in to that as well, and prob…

> That was my take away, that's pretty heavy drinking, surely?

Yes, that is the impression I received.

> Per your last para though, we can address more than one health situation at a time

My main point with my last paragraph is that people all too often focus inordinate effort on things that don't have the highest payback. Willpower, time, etc are all finite, so it's best to try to tackle the things with the greatest ROI first. As an analogy, if someone is paying 25% interest on a revolving balance (credit card) a month, it's best to focus on paying that off before making a second monthly payment on their 2.9% mortgage. Getting to a healthy weight reduces so many health risks, it's the logical first step in any health improvement plan. Although I don't have numbers to hand, I would not be surprised in the slightest if being obese increased the risk of breast cancer much much more than heavy drinking. Of course, one of the first things to do to lose weight is to cut back on alcohol consumption.

Re: The link between alcohol and breast cancer

#28

Post by dang »

iggg wrote: post #4
INTPenis wrote: post #2

This really hits close to home. My SO passed in september and she not only had a problem with alcohol off and on. She also had very high levels of estrogen causing other minor issues during her lifetime. Her breast cancer fed on estrogen. Depriving her of that hormone in an attempt to starve the cancer was awful. Like sucking a persons life blood out of them. Her sparkling and childish personality vanished with the h…

Did she have big titties? Does high estrogen cause nice tits?

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