Alcohol should have cancer warnings, say researchers pushing to raise awareness • Hacker News Board

Re: Alcohol should have cancer warnings, say researchers pushing to raise awareness

#21

Post by rapjr9 » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 12:38 AM UTC

paulryanrogers wrote: post #20

rapjr9 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says nothing about how much harm would be reduced, it just states a vague 50% increase in cancer risk without stating what the baseline is and what that risk means in relation to all the other cancer risks. And there has apparently been no study of the harm that might be caused by reducing alcohol use. If alcohol use was reduced would fewer babies get born? Would people be less creative? Would there be le…

> When was the last time a doctor recommended a standard test set to you to check your home environment for toxins? Never! Actually this happens pretty often with radon gas and mold tests. There are even regulations for testing when selling homes in some places. Rules requiring better informing consumers doesn't seem too onerous to me.

True, but probably not something your doctor would tell you to do, and those tests don't even begin to address all the environmental factors that could be tested for that could affect health. One thought I've had is that everywhere in America with old industry should be tested for toxins, for example all of Eastern Massachusetts. In the old days bad stuff was just poured out in the woods and is probably still sitting there today. Waiting till it shows up as increased health problems in a particular geographic location doesn't seem proactive enough. Your doctor should ask for a PM2.5 count from your home, as well as a measure of organic volatiles, noise levels, allergens, CO2 levels, an air sample to put into a gas chromatograph, a soil sample to analyze, and more to know how your environment could be affecting your health. It wouldn't have be done often, but as a new patient it should be one of the first things done. Hell, even when geographically located disease is obvious like near the chemical refineries in Texas little is being done by the medical community and they certainly are not asking for environmental tests for industrial byproducts.

Rules requiring better informing citizens are good. I'd like the warnings to be proportional to the risk though, and I'd rather see the risks studied and reduced rather than just a warning meant to alter human behavior. Medical warnings often seem like EULA's, everyone pays no attention to them and clicks through. If there was instead a warning that described how to reduce risk, and where the worst risks are, and how to mitigate some of the risk, maybe people would pay more attention.

Re: Alcohol should have cancer warnings, say researchers pushing to raise awareness

#22

Post by halpert » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 12:42 AM UTC

rapjr9 wrote: post #9

halpert wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a good take. If you care whether or not the list of chemicals you provided are cancerous, then you are free to study that yourself or support scientists that do study it. Just because a group of scientists chooses to study something you're not interested in doesn't mean that you can discount their work as "untrustworthy." Well you can, but it would be to your, and society's, detriment.

I think this is exactly the problem with the medical research community, they study what they choose to study, not what is important to study. This is a well known problem with research in general, researchers choose the easy problems and the profitable problems, while the hard problems get ignored for decades. Mapping DNA was considered too hard, until someone actually tried to do it, and now it's common. The resear…

I'm curious, what do you do for a living? Do you not do what you choose to do, rather than what is of the most importance? Many people on HN work at Google, for instance. Is an ad-tech really the most important issue facing humanity? The "research community" isn't a single organization that is gate kept by a centrally planned authority. It's comprised of individuals and organizations of varying sizes, all operating independently. You are free to join the research community yourself and study the things you think are important. Most people I know don't choose their jobs based on what is most important, but rather what fits their lifestyle, what is most lucrative, etc. These people still do good work and are trustworthy.

Re: Alcohol should have cancer warnings, say researchers pushing to raise awareness

#23

Post by mrkstu » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 2:08 AM UTC

bryik wrote: post #14

> "Alcohol has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen (carcinogenic to humans) for decades by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. It's right up there with tobacco and asbestos." Other Group 1 carcinogens [0]: - processed meat - Salted fish, Chinese-style (?) - solar radiation - outdoor air pollution - wood dust - leather dust A big problem with that CBC quote is that there is no way everything in Group…

Looks like about 4% of all cases of cancer can be attributed to alcohol consumption:

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

Not the leading cause, but significant, especially when considered along with the other health based harms.

Re: Alcohol should have cancer warnings, say researchers pushing to raise awareness

#24

Post by teleforce » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 3:03 AM UTC

rapjr9 wrote: post #6

If the medical community wants to gain my trust in their cancer judgements they can start by analyzing the cancer risks of the tens of thousands of chemicals that are used every day in our lives and to which we are exposed. PFAS, PFOS, insecticides, Purell (which is alcohol, does it cause cancer?), cleaning agents, food additives, tar coal oils, benzene in cigarette lighter butane and gasoline, plasticizers, skin lot…

This the link for HN discussions that I've posted yesterday regarding the anomaly of much lower cancer rates among Middle Eastern people despite their high consumption of sugar compared to other countries such as European countries, USA and Australia[1]. You can download the presentation slides from the link as well in addition to the video. The research is not that scientific but I think it's a good start.

TLDR, less or no alcohol consumption is considered one of the main reasons for the anomaly in addition to fasting, etc. My first thought when I saw the video is that the main reason is the alcohol because majority of the population in Middle Eastern countries are Muslim and alcohol is strictly prohibited in Islam.

[1]Why Does the Middle East Have the Lowest Cancer Rates in the World:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29852556

Re: Alcohol should have cancer warnings, say researchers pushing to raise awareness

#25

Post by resoluteteeth » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 10:00 PM UTC

GuB-42 wrote: post #3

Interesting that the article states repeatedly that there is zero safe level of alcohol when it comes to cancer. A lot of food we eat contains small amount of alcohol, bread in particular. Vinegar, fruits and juices too. And generally, we are well equipped to deal with it, and it only starts to become problematic when we start to run out of the required enzymes and are left with the toxic byproducts that cause hangov…

When they say the threshold is zero they mean they haven't identified any specific amount below which there stops being any effect, but the effect is still dose dependent so the effect from incidental consumption is negligible and undetectable (except maybe statistically if there are large populations that are identical except for consuming or not consuming then).

This is in the context of debate over whether some harmful things like radiation or ingestion of heavy metals go linearly to zero or of there is a specific threshold below which they suddenly stop being harmful.

It doesn't mean that all quantities of alcohol are equally harmful.