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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

#71

Post by watwut »

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".

While the grape juice is super tasty, this absolutely not meaningful comparison. For one, it is not so healthy to drink sugary stuff all too often.

For the other it is not replacement in any meaningful sense. The equivalent amount wont stop your thirst and one cup of grapefruit juice feels like you have drunk nothing.

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

#72

Post by Broken_Hippo »

yarcob wrote: post #47
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That is your personal decision, not a fact. I mean, you could say the same about riding a motorcycle. Riding a motorcycle only slightly increases your risk of dying in a horrible traffic accident, but for a lot of people the risk is big enough that they stop riding once they have kids.

People are aware of motorcycle risks upfront: They go fast. Wrecks are spectacular, and you don't go far to meet someone that has been affected by such an accident. You have safety gear, after all.

Alcohol isn't like that. Alcohol is more akin to something like going up stairs or showering or heck, a little similar to smoking. None of these things seem all that dangerous while you do them. But as it turns out, showers are pretty dangerous. Stairs make for horrible accidents, which is why it is so important to have the angle and height right (and even). Smoking, at first, does't seem like it'll give you cancer in 30 years, and may neve "feel" dangerous if you do it sporadically.

And the poster is correct: It doesn't matter much if you have a 3% more chance of dying of something if your chances are properly low in the first place - even after the increase, your chances are still low.

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

#73

Post by jsbdk »

fuzxi wrote: post #54
michaelmrose wrote: post #43

It is frustrating that they lump in any amount of alcohol up to 2 drinks per day as moderate which honestly isn't all that moderate. Still another way to read that is that while alcohol represents a real risk to community health resources you can mitigate 86% of the risk by limiting yourself to ONLY 68 gallons (257 liters) of beer this year. I would not be terribly surprised if most of the issues with moderate drinke…

The number I see frequently as the threshold of "heavy drinking" is 15 drinks per week, so I certainly agree that it's not accurate to call 14 drinks per week "moderate". 15 drinks per week is actually the limit here for commercial drivers. If you admit to drinking more than that during your annual/semi-annual DMV physical, you have essentially just admitted to alcoholism and can't keep driving class A/B vehicles unl…

That limit wouldn't work in many countries.

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

#74

Post by bserge »

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".

It's not only a poison though, it also has medicinal properties.

Helps with relaxation, anxiety and even acts as a short term antidepressant.

With that in mind, there is a safe level, just as there is with paracetamol.

Of course, having better medication is, well, better. But not everyone has access to it.

That said I have been struggling with it ever since I can remember and I wish I never tried it. It's very hard to stop once I start drinking.

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

#75

Post by eurasiantiger »

jsbdk wrote: post #73
fuzxi wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number I see frequently as the threshold of "heavy drinking" is 15 drinks per week, so I certainly agree that it's not accurate to call 14 drinks per week "moderate". 15 drinks per week is actually the limit here for commercial drivers. If you admit to drinking more than that during your annual/semi-annual DMV physical, you have essentially just admitted to alcoholism and can't keep driving class A/B vehicles unl…

That limit wouldn't work in many countries.

Because those countries are either under the fiscal control of Big Booze (taxes), or they are under control of criminal enterprises (usually from neighboring country)

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

#76

Post by mhh__ »

WalterBright wrote: post #63
jbigelow76 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(don't be so hard on the boomers, their fuckups are the fuckups of a generation that went through ww2) Pretty sure the boomers are the ones that came after WW2, the aforementioned "boom" of their namesake being progeny of those that didn't die during the blitz, Normandy, Stalingrad, and everywhere in between.

The boom comes from "baby boom" which means a sudden increase in the birth rate. This happens normally after wars end that have high casualty rates. I recall reading that the day WW1 was declared over, people were copulating in the streets of London. People have an urge to rebuild the population.

They were probably thinking less strategically at the time

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

#77

Post by machinehermiter »

refurb wrote: post #16

My sister works as a nurse in a geriatric department her attitude is “if I make it to 70 I’m going to start smoking”. She’s seen plenty of people with healthy bodies and destroyed minds to know she’s rather avoid that kind of fate.

65-70 is my age for this.

No kids/grandkids for me so I don't see much value in old age.

I have to live now and only have 15-20 good years left. Once that time comes it is time to party. Cigars, weed and rum. A broken down physical body with an even more broken down mind is a fate worse than death to me.

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

#78

Post by eurasiantiger »

danybittel wrote: post #56
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is not a helpful statistic because it doesn't say what percent of people are in this category. Exactly. I came here to ask whether anyone had read the paper carefully enough to say whether this information is actually missing or just absent from the summary. I get the impression that there is a sort of culture war going on. Some seem to be so keen on stressing that there is no safe level of drinking that they a…

Because most peoples main desire is "comfort" and not "truth".

Orrrrr could it be that there is lots of money in selling booze, and big players don’t want it banned again in favor of less harmful and/or more beneficial substances?

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

#79

Post by synquid »

michaelmrose wrote: post #43

It is frustrating that they lump in any amount of alcohol up to 2 drinks per day as moderate which honestly isn't all that moderate. Still another way to read that is that while alcohol represents a real risk to community health resources you can mitigate 86% of the risk by limiting yourself to ONLY 68 gallons (257 liters) of beer this year. I would not be terribly surprised if most of the issues with moderate drinke…

But that amount is based on available research, so what is your point? See e.g. https://www.jacc.org/doi/full/10.1016/j.jacc.2017.07.710

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

#80

Post by taneq »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #52
crackercrews wrote: post #41

> Even moderate drinking, two or fewer drinks a day, accounted for an estimated 14%, or 103,000 cases, of alcohol-related cancers, according to the study. This is not a helpful statistic because it doesn't say what percent of people are in this category. I skimmed the actual paper [1] and it appears that there is no designation below "moderate drinking" so this literally captures everyone who drinks 2 drinks or less…

>This is not a helpful statistic because it doesn't say what percent of people are in this category. Exactly. I came here to ask whether anyone had read the paper carefully enough to say whether this information is actually missing or just absent from the summary. I get the impression that there is a sort of culture war going on. Some seem to be so keen on stressing that there is no safe level of drinking that they a…

> I get the impression that there is a sort of culture war going on.

This is absolutely what's happening. Messaging from some official sources is so ideologically driven that they happily publish wrong and misleading information if they think it will further their goal.

The measure has become the target and so ceased to become a good measure.

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