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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

#111

Post by JeremyNT »

synquid wrote: post #62
yarcob wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

This is a very uneducated comment, considering available research. While some doubt can be cast on the J-shaped curve, we have a lot of evidence for all-cause mortality either decreasing or at least not increasing with low levels of consumption.

Is that evidence from industry funded studies, though?

Industry funded studies told us smoking was safe for a long time. In the case of alcohol we absolutely know that high doses are very dangerous. There are lies, damn lies, and statistics, after all.

Maybe there's a safe dose of alcohol. Maybe the risk of low doses is small enough to be accepted. But we've been lied to buy poison vendors enough times that I'll take any of their proclamations of safety with a mountain of salt.

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

#112

Post by darkerside »

mjfl wrote: post #87

Alcohol is metabolized into aldehydes which cross link your DNA, literally preserving you as you are alive. It is a biological miracle that your body has DNA repair enzymes which can basically shrug this off. If we didn't have those enzymes drinking alcohol would lead to similar symptoms as radiation poisoning.

Biological miracle is a stretch. We wouldn't drink it if it were poison. It's just an interesting mechanism.

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

#113

Post by xabush »

hrh wrote: post #104
schindlabua wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weed cost me 5 years of my life that I'm never getting back. It's great if some people can form better habits than me but all the weed users I know (plenty) use it every day all day. The biggest detriment is opportunity cost, time you'd spend doing something exciting or productive is spent on watching your Netflix queue instead. Some people claim to get a lot of creative work done while stoned but those people probab…

It really is dependent on the person. I figured out at some point during the last decade that the only stimulant that works for me is THC. Caffeine won't do it. It doesn't matter what I do, if I eat healthy get 8 hours of sleep, exercise, etc, I can wake up and within 30 minutes of work feel so mentally and physically wiped that I have to sleep...rinse and repeat. I've managed to force myself to get through that repe…

This is an interesting anecdote. I have gotten high several times during my college years and less so since I started my career. In all of the cases I got high, it was primarily for entertainment purposes. However, whenever I am high, I get some sense of clarity about problems that were irking me the week before (I usually do weed over the weekends). This led me to wonder, esp. lately, what if there is actually some connection between productivity and marijuana use (not abuse) and your experience seems to be inline with that. Ofcourse, there are trove of other anecdotes about how weed is used for creative/artistic purposes but I haven't come across ones related to programming.

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

#114

Post by Falkon1313 »

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…

Well one other way to frame it would be that 96% of the people who got cancer were not regular drinkers.

When you consider how many people are regular drinkers (and how low the bar is set - only 2 drinks per day) vs how many people get cancer (39.5%), then if only 4% of cancer occurred in regular drinkers, then you would naturally draw the conclusion that regular drinking appears to prevent cancer.

But that goes against the narrative that they're selling.

True, that's just a way to question it from a different angle and try to understand it. But if they don't address that angle, then it doesn't really say much.

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

#116

Post by OJFord »

darkerside wrote: post #112
mjfl wrote: post #87

Alcohol is metabolized into aldehydes which cross link your DNA, literally preserving you as you are alive. It is a biological miracle that your body has DNA repair enzymes which can basically shrug this off. If we didn't have those enzymes drinking alcohol would lead to similar symptoms as radiation poisoning.

Biological miracle is a stretch. We wouldn't drink it if it were poison. It's just an interesting mechanism.

Alternatively, our entire bodies are 'biological miracles' and nothing specific is remarkable.

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

#117

Post by hrh »

xabush wrote: post #113
hrh wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is dependent on the person. I figured out at some point during the last decade that the only stimulant that works for me is THC. Caffeine won't do it. It doesn't matter what I do, if I eat healthy get 8 hours of sleep, exercise, etc, I can wake up and within 30 minutes of work feel so mentally and physically wiped that I have to sleep...rinse and repeat. I've managed to force myself to get through that repe…

This is an interesting anecdote. I have gotten high several times during my college years and less so since I started my career. In all of the cases I got high, it was primarily for entertainment purposes. However, whenever I am high, I get some sense of clarity about problems that were irking me the week before (I usually do weed over the weekends). This led me to wonder, esp. lately, what if there is actually some…

Jobs always said acid was critical to his success. He dropped a good amount of acid, so that probably really would make you think differently.

People can mock it all they want, but I really do get very creative on weed. There's a reason creative companies don't test for it...

It's not something I've shared, but it always surprises me how often I smell weed on the street (again, "illegal"), how easy it is to get, and how many people I wouldn't expect "abused" it at one point or another. I was scared of telling my parents for a long time but came to find out they were both drug using hippies, anyway.

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

#118

Post by op00to »

shafyy wrote: post #94
theo102 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and these limits are set arbitrarily and are often even more detrimental. If you know the doc says you can have 14 but not 15, you now have a target to be "ok" when you show up to the doctor. If the gap between 14 and 15 is linear and not somehow logarithmic then you're telling me that consuming exactly two drinks a day will be fine, but that extra scotch you have on friday makes you an alcoholic. This term is thrown…

> HN is filled with these pop-sci teetotalers who rag on alcohol but promote the uninhibited abuse of THC and other dangerous mind altering drugs. It's an absurd bizzaro world. Exactly! People have been drinking for millenia, and while alcohol doesn't make you healthier, it's also clear that drinking "normally" doesn't cause major health issues (unlike, smoking cigarettes for example). Sure, if you drink 2 bottles of…

Did you … did you not read the article that says alcohol causes cancer?

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

#120

Post by op00to »

ekianjo wrote: post #102
shafyy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> HN is filled with these pop-sci teetotalers who rag on alcohol but promote the uninhibited abuse of THC and other dangerous mind altering drugs. It's an absurd bizzaro world. Exactly! People have been drinking for millenia, and while alcohol doesn't make you healthier, it's also clear that drinking "normally" doesn't cause major health issues (unlike, smoking cigarettes for example). Sure, if you drink 2 bottles of…

drinking normally increases risks of cancer much more than tobacco does.

Doing what with tobacco? Smoking it surely increases risk of cancer more, no?
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