
Cancer Doctors Cite Risks of Drinking Alcohol - LiweiZ
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/well/live/cancer-doctors-cite-risks-of-drinking-alcohol.html?referer=https://news.google.com
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hyperbovine
It would be better to know at what age this increases risk. If a lifetime
spent drinking delicious, delicious red wine ends up taking me out 5yrs before
Alzheimer's would, so be it.

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dsnuh
How old are you? I'm just a touch over 40 and even at this age the poignancy
of life really starts to reveal itself to you.

You would trade 5 years of your life for being able to drink wine? Because
it's that delicious, right? Sorry, but this is either hyperbole to the point
of silliness or you have no idea the value of your life.

~~~
bretthoerner
Don't forget that the X years always come off the back end. If you'd speak to
my 90 year old grandmother about the poignancy of life right now I think she
might have a thing or two to teach you about how great it is at the end.

You've also chosen wine as the enemy here, I bet for any given person earth
(including you) we could find something you could have done more of (or not
done at all) to improve your lifespan. Very few people trade everything off
for life expectancy, and those that do often have dreams of singularity or
life extension as their only goal.

~~~
dsnuh
One more thought...it doesn't always come off the back end. My mother is obese
due to lifestyle choices. She has an artificial knee and hip. She is still a
vibrant 67 year old woman, but she lost almost 2 years in rehabilitation and
now does and will have mobility issues for the rest of her life. I still don't
think when the end comes that she would have wanted to miss all the things
that happened (good and bad) during those years, or even as she deteriorates
further in the coming years.

Edit: spelling

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dr_
The N.Y. Times once reported on the lifespans of the people of Ikaria, who
apparently have the longest recorded lifespans, as a group, in the world.
Their diet includes moderate amounts of wine.

“Wine — in moderation — had been shown to be good for you if consumed as part
of a Mediterranean diet, because it prompts the body to absorb more
flavonoids, a type of antioxidant”

Not a medical research study, but I wonder how oncologists would reconcile
their recommendations with reports such as this. Presumably the studies they
have reviewed control for other factors such as diet and lifestyle.

(Original article: [https://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/the-island-
wh...](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/the-island-where-people-
forget-to-die.html))

~~~
StavrosK
Are we sure the lifespan thing isn't just a statistical quirk? If you take a
thousand small places, one is _bound_ to have the longest-living people in the
world.

~~~
dsnuh
OT: @StavrosK did you use to frequent metafilter?

~~~
StavrosK
Unfortunately no, I never got a subscription.

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opportune
Alcohol is definitely one of the most harmful drugs out there. In terms of
addictiveness, physical side effects (short and long term), and the kind of
behavior that people are likely to engage in while under the influence, the
only things worse are probably IV painkillers and smoked meth/crack.

As a society we need to get our heads out of our asses and challenge our
notions of what kind of drug use is and isn't acceptable. It's happening with
weed, but unfortunately doesn't seem to be transferring to all/most other
illegal drugs that aren't that harmful. It's perfectly fine to tell my boss
that I got too drunk on Friday but if I tell him that I took psychedelic
mushrooms or my friend's ADHD meds I probably wouldn't be employed much
longer.

Alcoholism and propensity to addiction run through both sides of my family.
Three out of four grandparents alcoholics, three out of four aunts/uncles
alcoholics. I have nothing against alcohol use and drink myself, but I have to
wonder how successful my family would have been if they lived in a society
that hadn't (implicitly, if not explicitly) pressured them to drink, or if
they had access to something they could "focus" their addiction on that
wouldn't be as harmful as alcohol.

~~~
dsnuh
Alcohol is shilled so hard in America. It's disgusting. I honestly don't know
why it isn't more strictly regulated.

I used to binge drink every few nights when I was younger. Like most people
that have drank more than they should have, I have lots of stories of mischief
and questionable (at best, sometimes straight illegal) behavior. And these are
the stories I used to trade with friends and coworkers. Oh man, they were
legendary, right?

This is the thing I see most often that just disappoints menow that that's not
me anymore and I have realized that alcohol is a terrible drug. The
celebration of behavior that is written off to alcohol and thus, totally fine
and even funny. Everyone has a story. It's like when you quit smoking and are
no longer blind to cigarette butts on the ground everywhere.

~~~
Shorel
> Alcohol is shilled so hard in America. It's disgusting. I honestly don't
> know why it isn't more strictly regulated.

Total drunk behaviour or total abstention are both extreme and symptoms of
other, deeper issues. Alcohol can amplify existing issues, but there's also
plenty of people who drink moderately, in family settings, without getting
wasted or violent.

~~~
ivm
So you are saying that I have issues because I don't like to use a popular
drug?

~~~
Shorel
Of course not. If you don't like it, you don't like it. I dislike 99.9% of all
drinks myself, including the distilled ones if they are not mixed with
something.

But if you like it, and you taste a drop and can't control yourself, then yes,
that would mean you have issues. And most importantly, that would mean the
society around you, and their lack of a good support net, healthy extended
family and so on, also has issues.

Why? Because I think when people live in a good non-toxic community most of
the issues with abuse stop happening, and living in a toxic community is a
factor for abuse, and it is a bigger factor than the access to the drugs
themselves.

~~~
dsnuh
I feel like it is a lot more nuanced than "taste a drop and you can't control
yourself", and that's not the argument I am making anyway.

Like most things, it's a spectrum. Some people are exactly as you described. I
have them in my family. Others, like me only have a problem once we tip over
the point of "Yeah, I'm good. One more is fine."

Alcohol is a strange drug. I think one of things that makes it so popular in
the USA is that it is a "masculine" drug. I mean it's "liquid courage", right?
The image of the frat boy that can beer pong all night and then take advantage
of drunk sorority girl is so common as to be a trope. Media of all sorts is
rife with examples of violence and damage caused by alcohol. Barfights.
Barflys. Cougars. Roofied. Broken families. One night stands. Blackouts.

Alcohol, in my view, is a drug that tends to bring out the worst sorts of base
desires and behaviors once a dosage level is crossed (different for everyone
of course). I see no medicinal use for it, now that we have modern anesthesia.
It has a high rate of abuse and addiction. Alcoholism is a real disease, and
it is progressive. I still would be interested to hear any arguments against
classifying alcohol as a Schedule I substance according to the language in the
FDA statute.

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Buttes
Wasn't this connection pretty well known? Colon cancer and all that. Plus like
cmon its no secret alcohol os tough on your body, cancer is probably the least
of your worries.

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reustle
As someone who has never drank and often has discussions with people about
alcohol, it's amusing to see how many people go straight to defending their
choice to drink alcohol in this thread.

~~~
jacobolus
Low doses of alcohol are a very effective anxiolytic medicine for many people.

I don’t drink too much, but when I’m extremely stressed out (e.g. when
enraged, extremely scared, in shock, etc. to the point of being unable to use
higher brain function, being ready to fight or flee, etc.), one drink goes
incredibly far toward taking the edge off, reducing both mental and physical
symptoms of anxiety, and bringing out calm, rational thinking.

Alcohol also helps a lot of people with social awkwardness/fears, which is why
so many social meeting places (especially places where strangers meet) serve
alcohol. It serves a real useful function there, helping people to be more
trusting and open.

Obviously when people drink more than they can handle, it also can have severe
negative side effects, and can cause people to have emotional breakdowns, lose
their inhibitions to the point of idiocy, lose their basic coordination,
suffer memory loss, etc. But the same is true for many medicines/foods/drugs.

Many problematic uses of alcohol are related to people’s other severe
emotional problems (post-traumatic stress, ongoing abuse at home or work,
working through the death of someone close or a bad breakup, extreme
loneliness, depression, etc.). If self-medicating with large doses of alcohol
was not an option, it’s not clear what alternatives they would turn to or
whether those would be preferable. The real lesson IMO is that we need much
better social support and mental healthcare in this country.

~~~
thrawnjuxt
We desperately need Synthehol - [http://memory-
alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Synthehol](http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Synthehol)

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archagon
I have read these studies before, and they’ve compelled me to drop my beer
drinking down to about 1.2 standard drinks a day. Works for me: still get to
drink, still get to pop a bomber of the heavy stuff once a week, and have more
incentive to explore low-ABV styles like gueuze and lager. I haven’t found any
studies at all that describe the risks of alcohol consumption for men at 1
standard drink per day — which isn’t to say that the risks don’t exist, but
they’re probably pretty low.

However, the article implies that the size of a standard drink as 10g, whereas
almost everywhere else I’ve heard it as 14g. So which is it?

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Jeema101
Of course alcohol increases the risk of some cancers - it's a known
carcinogen. On top of that it can be highly addictive.

On the other hand, though, it's something a lot of people enjoy as as social
lubricant, and there is also the evidence that drinking in moderation lowers
the risk of heart disease.

So like many things in life the question is whether the positive outweighs the
negative - that of course depends largely on your own risk factors for cancer,
heart disease, and, yes... alcoholism.

~~~
carbocation
The best evidence we have suggests that there is no safe amount of alcohol
from the standpoint of heart disease[1]. The data supporting the safety (or
even benefit) of a small amount of alcohol came from observational studies,
which are often heavily confounded. This study used Mendelian randomization
(MR) to get around that limitation. MR can be confounded by pleiotropy, but
this study (which suggests harm from alcohol intake) is still higher quality
evidence than the observational studies done previously.

1 =
[http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g4164](http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g4164)

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chiefalchemist
Cause or correlation? Given the (bad) dietary and lifestyle habits of the
majority of people, it's too easy to attribute something to X when in fact
it's likely Y or Z.

Full disclosure: I'm half way through Grain Brain (having read Wheat Belly a
couple years ago) and the current "ideal diet" is anything but.

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banachtarski
Did they demonstrate that there was a causative and not correlative effect
being observed?

~~~
mikestew
I thought the article was pretty clear. From your reading of the article,
which part is confusing on this point?

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microcolonel
Most Americans drink very little, it seems. Being in the top quintile means
something like one serving per day, about a third of Americans abstain
entirely.

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known
Alcoholic should periodically go for [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-
fetoprotein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-fetoprotein) diagnosis

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tzaman
Slightly sarcastic, but on point: Doctors say a glass of red wine per day is
good for your blood. But now, they also say it'll increase chances of getting
cancer. So I guess I need to choose between these two. Too much of anything is
a poison.

~~~
carbocation
See my other post here [1], but alcohol probably isn't good for your
cardiovascular system.

1 =
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15666791](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15666791)

