Cancer risks increase with alcohol use, leading to over 740k cases last year • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 11:53 AM UTC

ninkendo wrote: post #126

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…

> Some people claim to get a lot of creative work done while stoned but those people probably haven't tried doing it sober for too long. After smoking every single day for about 5 years I decided to test this hypothesis about a year ago (I had my first kid on the way and didn’t want to be one of those parents that smoked weed.) I also surmised that maybe I really needed to get it all out of my system - by not smoking…

[deleted]

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

#142

Post by j4yav » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 11:53 AM UTC

schindlabua wrote: post #100

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…

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…

In my experience, people who quit subsequently taking extreme / absolutist negative positions (I assume it is something for people who actually did have a problem to help them quit?) is much more predictable than concluding that anyone who smokes a joint with friends is certainly a substance abuser or that it is impossible except in theory to be productive or creative if you ever use weed.

I rarely smoke weed, maybe a few times a year (typically as a joint on a summer day after lunch with friends, actually) and I can say I am much more likely to sit around and watch Netflix sober.

I live in the Netherlands, so maybe things are more relaxed around here. I rarely if ever run into someone throwing their life away to it.

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

#143

Post by enraged_camel » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 12:00 PM UTC

EugeneOZ wrote: post #127

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…

What is “drink” here? How many milliliters, what percentage of alcohol? 40%? 15%? 50ml or 200ml?

I’m wondering this too.

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

#144

Post by TaupeRanger » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 12:01 PM UTC

This is complete bunk, like most nutrition epidemiological studies. They start by assuming a causal relationship that we simply don't know actually exists, using biologically "plausible" pathways that are, again, unproven. And even then, they don't seem to account for the reduction of cancer risk that many wine and beer studies have shown (though, again, from equally spurious epi studies). And here again we have news outlets just uncritically parroting the findings to their audiences.

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

#145

Post by nindalf » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 12:02 PM UTC

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…

> some of you guys don't obviously have that much experience with what you are talking about (not you)

Thanks for adding the caveat. Most people on this thread are pretty ignorant about drugs, except for me, you and the person reading this comment.

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

#146

Post by TaupeRanger » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 12:09 PM UTC

dynm wrote: post #119

Many people are not aware of the huge range of health issues that alcohol is associated with. It goes way beyond just cancer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_and_health#/media/File...

Most people understand that occasional drinking with a healthy lifestyle is perfectly fine, and drinking 3 beers every day is probably not: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...

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

#147

Post by neveradmitmyid » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 12:10 PM UTC

ninkendo wrote: post #126

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…

> Some people claim to get a lot of creative work done while stoned but those people probably haven't tried doing it sober for too long. After smoking every single day for about 5 years I decided to test this hypothesis about a year ago (I had my first kid on the way and didn’t want to be one of those parents that smoked weed.) I also surmised that maybe I really needed to get it all out of my system - by not smoking…

I'm a heavy smoker - an oz of Indica with 2 grams of powder hash added per week is my mix of choice. I've been a heavy smoker since the 70's, and a computer science research scientist pretty much the entire time. I know I am an outlier, but there are more than a few like us: people that find marihuana to aid in their ability to focus. The work that I do is basically all day calculus, and being high enables my to hyper focus on the minutia of the issue at hand. It can take up to an hour to regain the details of what I'm working on in my head, and then it is statistics and calculus for the remainder of the day. I turn off my phone, quit any communications software, smoke a bowl or three and spend the next 8 hours in abstract symbolic land. It works. I'm quite successful, published, and respected for my work and generally easy going personality. It works. Also, I do not drink booze at all - I hate. Can't think!

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

#148

Post by TaupeRanger » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 12:17 PM UTC

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".

Just plain wrong. Sugar is also "poison", right? For every study that shows a negative effect from wine, you can find one that shows a benefit to mortality. Leave your vendetta against alcohol out of this - epidemiological studies in this area are very low quality and don't show causation in any way.

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

#149

Post by RandomWorker » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 12:17 PM UTC

TaupeRanger wrote: post #144

This is complete bunk, like most nutrition epidemiological studies. They start by assuming a causal relationship that we simply don't know actually exists, using biologically "plausible" pathways that are, again, unproven. And even then, they don't seem to account for the reduction of cancer risk that many wine and beer studies have shown (though, again, from equally spurious epi studies). And here again we have news…

The title is wrong here Of the 740k is global not USA. And it represents 4% of all cases. Which is relatively low but not insignificant. I don’t think they are wrong, anecdotal evidence from my family also explains this, the family members who drink quite a lot more than 2 cups a day, they all have colon cancer in my family. Strangely those that do not drink have kept it at bay or at least got it 10/20 years later.

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

#150

Post by hrh » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 12:20 PM UTC

nindalf wrote: post #145

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…

> some of you guys don't obviously have that much experience with what you are talking about (not you) Thanks for adding the caveat. Most people on this thread are pretty ignorant about drugs, except for me, you and the person reading this comment.

Ha.

I say that because we're going full on reefer madness with stuff like:

"uninhibited abuse of THC and other dangerous mind altering drugs"