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Cancer risks increase with alcohol use, leading to over 740k cases last year

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Re: Cancer risks increase with alcohol use, leading to over 740k cases last year

#31

Post by laurieg »

armada651 wrote: post #6

> Our study highlights the contribution of even relatively low levels of alcohol to the risk of new cancer cases, "relatively" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. I'm always amazed when filling out health surveys where it considers one alcoholic drink every single day a "low level".

The biggest difference is if alcohol is part of your routine or just for special occasions.

If it's part of your routine you might have a glass or two of wine with dinner most nights. Or a couple of pints in the pub after work. Maybe you never really get drunk, but you're drinking a lot of alcohol.

I used to drink pretty infrequently. Sure, I'd have a six pack a party every now and then but most of the time I was busy with other things.

Now that there's not so many 'other things' to do I do find myself drinking more and more regularly.

Re: Cancer risks increase with alcohol use, leading to over 740k cases last year

#32

Post by davnn »

rob74 wrote: post #26
tomjen3 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a six pack a week? Yeah, that seems pretty low to me. You can certainly go lower than that, without not drinking at all, but you can also go much higher without it having any noticeable effect on your life and without being drunk at any point: One beer to celebrate sitting in your garden at the end of the work day, one glass of wine at dinner, one scotch before bed.

Congratulations, if you do that every single day, that makes you a heavy drinker. Drinking alcohol every single day is already one red flag, and drinking more than one "drink" (one small bottle of beer, one glass of wine or one small glass of whisky/vodka/etc.) per day is a second red flag. Of course you can get much worse than that, but it will still negatively impact your health long-term.

Well, it's not so clear cut. If you live your life according to a Mediterranean lifestyle and drink your glass of wine each day (mostly in a social setting, which is especially important when you grow older), you will be healthier than most other people.

Re: Cancer risks increase with alcohol use, leading to over 740k cases last year

#33

Post by brador »

flunhat wrote: post #7
avalys wrote: post #3

740,000 cases out of 7.8 billion people, or less than 1 case per 7,800 people. That’s not all that surprising to me.

From the paper, > Globally, an estimated 741 300 (95% UI 558 500–951 200), or 4.1% (3.1–5.3), of all new cases of cancer in 2020 were attributable to alcohol consumption. Males accounted for 568 700 (76.7%; 95% UI 422 500–731 100) of total alcohol-attributable cancer cases, and cancers of the oesophagus (189 700 cases [110 900–274 600]), liver (154 700 cases [43 700–281 500]), and breast (98 300 cases [68 200–130 500…

How though? By what mechanism is alcohol leading to an increase in cancer rates?

Re: Cancer risks increase with alcohol use, leading to over 740k cases last year

#34

Post by staticassertion »

rob74 wrote: post #26
tomjen3 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a six pack a week? Yeah, that seems pretty low to me. You can certainly go lower than that, without not drinking at all, but you can also go much higher without it having any noticeable effect on your life and without being drunk at any point: One beer to celebrate sitting in your garden at the end of the work day, one glass of wine at dinner, one scotch before bed.

Congratulations, if you do that every single day, that makes you a heavy drinker. Drinking alcohol every single day is already one red flag, and drinking more than one "drink" (one small bottle of beer, one glass of wine or one small glass of whisky/vodka/etc.) per day is a second red flag. Of course you can get much worse than that, but it will still negatively impact your health long-term.

Everybody dies. I can only make so many sacrifices.

Re: Cancer risks increase with alcohol use, leading to over 740k cases last year

#35

Post by billfruit »

rafaelero wrote: post #14
DoreenMichele wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you are self-treating depression. Though these days there are drugs for depression that can dramatically increase the odds you will quit smoking.

This is not where I was heading at. We have no simple way to assert that smoking causes lung cancer: no RCT is available for that. So we are left with the same level of evidence that we have for alcohol, which is observational studies. That knee jerk reaction that observational studies can't give us a relatively high level of confidence is why I mentioned the case of tobacco: if you really believe that, you should al…

Empirical evidence may not be there, what about theoretical formulation of the mechanism by which smoking affects the lung? Shouldn't we able to explain it only on the basis of theory?

Re: Cancer risks increase with alcohol use, leading to over 740k cases last year

#36

Post by yarcob »

davnn wrote: post #32
rob74 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations, if you do that every single day, that makes you a heavy drinker. Drinking alcohol every single day is already one red flag, and drinking more than one "drink" (one small bottle of beer, one glass of wine or one small glass of whisky/vodka/etc.) per day is a second red flag. Of course you can get much worse than that, but it will still negatively impact your health long-term.

Well, it's not so clear cut. If you live your life according to a Mediterranean lifestyle and drink your glass of wine each day (mostly in a social setting, which is especially important when you grow older), you will be healthier than most other people.

If you live that same life and drink a glass of grape juice instead of wine everyday, you'll live even longer.

Alcohol is a poisson and there is no "safe" level.

Now, it's a personal decision how much risk is acceptable to you, but don't lie to yourself how "one glass a day is not going to make a difference".

Re: Cancer risks increase with alcohol use, leading to over 740k cases last year

#37

Post by honie »

- Does the study exclude the possibility of other factors causing the increase in cases in 2020? For example, potential reduction in exercise and exposure to sunlight?

- How valid is the assumption "assuming a 10-year latency period between alcohol consumption and cancer diagnosis"?

- Why would not one attempt to find correlation between yearly reported cases (or PAF if applicable) and yearly alcohol consumption instead? As it stands, some points in the discussion read like assertions. One example is this:

> Our estimated global PAF was lower than the previous global estimates of 5·5% of cancer cases in 2012, 4·8% of cancer deaths in 2016, and 4·9% of cancer deaths in 2019. This difference could be due to genuine decreases in consumption of alcohol in several world regions, such as in southern Europe and central and eastern Europe, as Shield and colleagues reported a 5·5% decrease in the global alcohol-attributable age-standardised rate of death from cancer between 2000 and 2016.

And this:

> On the other end of the spectrum, alcohol consumption in central and eastern Europe has historically outranked that of other world regions, but has decreased in recent years, whereas increases in alcohol consumption, linked with countries' economic development, are projected in Asian countries such as China and India.

The statements above seem to be at odds with each other according to the number of alcohol-attributed cases from each country in the appendix.[2]

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2...

[2] https://www.thelancet.com/cms/10.1016/S1470-2045(21)00279-5/...

Edit: formatting, removed part of a sentence for a better tone. Edit 2: removed irrelevant part in the second quote.

Re: Cancer risks increase with alcohol use, leading to over 740k cases last year

#38

Post by yarcob »

brador wrote: post #33
flunhat wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the paper, > Globally, an estimated 741 300 (95% UI 558 500–951 200), or 4.1% (3.1–5.3), of all new cases of cancer in 2020 were attributable to alcohol consumption. Males accounted for 568 700 (76.7%; 95% UI 422 500–731 100) of total alcohol-attributable cancer cases, and cancers of the oesophagus (189 700 cases [110 900–274 600]), liver (154 700 cases [43 700–281 500]), and breast (98 300 cases [68 200–130 500…

How though? By what mechanism is alcohol leading to an increase in cancer rates?

From the article:

> What's the connection?

> There are a few biological pathways that lead from alcohol consumption to a cancer diagnosis, according to the study. Ethanol, the form of alcohol present in beer, wine and liquor, breaks down to form a known carcinogen called acetaldehyde, which damages DNA and interferes with cells' ability to repair the damage.

> Alcohol can also increase levels of hormones, including estrogen. Hormones signal cells to grow and divide. With more cell division, there are more opportunities for cancer to develop. Alcohol also reduces the body's ability to absorb certain cancer-protective nutrients, including vitamins A, C, D, E and folate.

> What's more, the combination of drinking and smoking might indirectly increase the risk of cancer, with alcohol acting as a kind of solvent for the carcinogenic chemicals in tobacco.

Re: Cancer risks increase with alcohol use, leading to over 740k cases last year

#39

Post by andi999 »

inglor_cz wrote: post #30
DantesKite wrote: post #4

Makes sense. I once read if humans were biologically immortal, everyone would basically get cancer if they lived to be 2,000 years old. It's just inevitable. Hopefully it comes later in life, rather than sooner.

If humans were biologically immortal, they would likely have immune systems strong enough that cancer would be rare. Species such as whales and elephants, who have a lot more cells than humans do, have much stronger anti-cancer mechanisms than humans and rarely get cancer. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/08/elephants-rarely-get... https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325178

People with Laron syndrome don't seem to get cancer.

Re: Cancer risks increase with alcohol use, leading to over 740k cases last year

#40

Post by ZephyrBlu »

yarcob wrote: post #36
davnn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's not so clear cut. If you live your life according to a Mediterranean lifestyle and drink your glass of wine each day (mostly in a social setting, which is especially important when you grow older), you will be healthier than most other people.

If you live that same life and drink a glass of grape juice instead of wine everyday, you'll live even longer. Alcohol is a poisson and there is no "safe" level. Now, it's a personal decision how much risk is acceptable to you, but don't lie to yourself how "one glass a day is not going to make a difference".

> Now, it's a personal decision how much risk is acceptable to you, but don't lie to yourself how "one glass a day is not going to make a difference"

If one glass a day only slightly increases your risk (Say a few % points), then it will effectively make no difference.

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