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About 3 drinks per day puts you from 1.5 to 3 times more likely to develop various cancers, according to: http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/

About 3 drinks per day puts you from 1.5 to 3 times more likely to develop various cancers, according to: http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/alcohol/alcohol-fact-sheet#q2 http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/al...

brador 10y ago
It's just sugary yeast water though. My guess is it's the obesity from drinking that increases the chance of the cancers not the drink itself. Which has then created a correlation between alcohol and the cancers cited.
- tqkxzugoaupvwqr 10y ago
  It's not just sugary yeast water, it's alcohol, a toxin. If alcohol were not the cause but fat/obesity, we wouldn't see cancer concentrated on the oropharynx, larynx, esophagus, liver, colon and rectum.
- icegreentea 10y ago
  Its not just sugary yeast water. The first step of alcohol metabolism is conversion to acetaldehyde, which is then processed further into acetic acid. Acetaldehyde is very much a carcinogen (and its also directly DNA damaging). The science is super clear. We even have this control population called "east asians". The "asian flush" phenomenon is the result of hyperactive ADH1 (which converts ethanol to acetaldehyde) and relatively inactive forms of the enzymes required for the result of the conversion, resulting in acetaldehyde sticking around in higher quantities and for much longer than say a european population.
  - joshyeager 10y ago
    Do East Asians have a higher likelihood of types of cancer that could be linked to alcohol use? I've never seen that claim, but it would be interesting if it were true.
    - icegreentea 10y ago
      You can give this a shot. http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000050 http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jou...
      - joshyeager 10y ago
        Very interesting, thanks!
    - ekianjo 10y ago
      Japanese and south koreans are known to have the highest rates in the world of stomach cancer. And they happen to be East Asian and drink often.
1ris 10y ago
Yes, this is what I'm referring to. This information is completly meaningless to me. How does a 1.5 to 3 times higher cancer risk affect my mortality? A 100 times elevated risk in extreme uncommon diseases is absoluty irrelevant, but a 10 percent increase to get something very common is quite important. Likewise is the age when these disease typically break out. If it's typically not before 85, I wouldn't mind. If it's often before 40, I would dearly. I know that alcohol increases the risk for prostate cancer. But prostate cancer typically starts at very high age and is usually just a minor hassle. The typical infected person dies of something else and has a usual life expectancy. How to these factors from 1.5 to 3 affect my mortality? Should I care? I want to say something like say "I'm drinking $n drinks a week, and in order to compensate that I stop doing other things with a similar risk".
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ekianjo 10y ago
  Cancer is not uncommon, 1 person out of 3 gets it if they live long enough.
  - vonmoltke 10y ago
    "Cancer" is not a single disease that can be lumped together like this. It is a large group of different diseases that share a similar mechanism (cell mutation and unchecked growth). Without information about what specific cancers are involved, it may be as the GP said: an elevated risk of a rare cancer.
    - ekianjo 10y ago
      Alright, how about that then ? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3172907/table/tbl2/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3172907/table/tb...
- conception 10y ago
  It's sorta hard to say because most of your risk just depends on your genetics. You could be in a happy genetic lottery of 1 : 1,000,000,000 of getting cancer before 50 or you could have terrible genes and be in the 1:100,000 lotto of getting cancer before your 50. If you drink in excess, you're buying three tickets for whichever lotto your in instead of the single ticket you get when you're born. And you collect these tickets all through your life - flying in airplanes a lot, staying in the sun a lot, smoking, etc. You just never know which lotto you're in so it's hard to say, with today's technology, how it will affect you. That's why some people smoke till their 90 without a problem and others get lung cancer much younger. Different lottos.

brador 10y ago

It's just sugary yeast water though. My guess is it's the obesity from drinking that increases the chance of the cancers not the drink itself. Which has then created a correlation between alcohol and the cancers cited.

tqkxzugoaupvwqr 10y ago
It's not just sugary yeast water, it's alcohol, a toxin. If alcohol were not the cause but fat/obesity, we wouldn't see cancer concentrated on the oropharynx, larynx, esophagus, liver, colon and rectum.
icegreentea 10y ago
Its not just sugary yeast water. The first step of alcohol metabolism is conversion to acetaldehyde, which is then processed further into acetic acid. Acetaldehyde is very much a carcinogen (and its also directly DNA damaging). The science is super clear. We even have this control population called "east asians". The "asian flush" phenomenon is the result of hyperactive ADH1 (which converts ethanol to acetaldehyde) and relatively inactive forms of the enzymes required for the result of the conversion, resulting in acetaldehyde sticking around in higher quantities and for much longer than say a european population.
- joshyeager 10y ago
  Do East Asians have a higher likelihood of types of cancer that could be linked to alcohol use? I've never seen that claim, but it would be interesting if it were true.
  - icegreentea 10y ago
    You can give this a shot. http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000050 http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jou...
    - joshyeager 10y ago
      Very interesting, thanks!
  - ekianjo 10y ago
    Japanese and south koreans are known to have the highest rates in the world of stomach cancer. And they happen to be East Asian and drink often.

1ris 10y ago

Yes, this is what I'm referring to. This information is completly meaningless to me. How does a 1.5 to 3 times higher cancer risk affect my mortality? A 100 times elevated risk in extreme uncommon diseases is absoluty irrelevant, but a 10 percent increase to get something very common is quite important. Likewise is the age when these disease typically break out. If it's typically not before 85, I wouldn't mind. If it's often before 40, I would dearly. I know that alcohol increases the risk for prostate cancer. But prostate cancer typically starts at very high age and is usually just a minor hassle. The typical infected person dies of something else and has a usual life expectancy. How to these factors from 1.5 to 3 affect my mortality? Should I care? I want to say something like say "I'm drinking $n drinks a week, and in order to compensate that I stop doing other things with a similar risk".

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ekianjo 10y ago
Cancer is not uncommon, 1 person out of 3 gets it if they live long enough.
- vonmoltke 10y ago
  "Cancer" is not a single disease that can be lumped together like this. It is a large group of different diseases that share a similar mechanism (cell mutation and unchecked growth). Without information about what specific cancers are involved, it may be as the GP said: an elevated risk of a rare cancer.
  - ekianjo 10y ago
    Alright, how about that then ? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3172907/table/tbl2/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3172907/table/tb...
conception 10y ago
It's sorta hard to say because most of your risk just depends on your genetics. You could be in a happy genetic lottery of 1 : 1,000,000,000 of getting cancer before 50 or you could have terrible genes and be in the 1:100,000 lotto of getting cancer before your 50. If you drink in excess, you're buying three tickets for whichever lotto your in instead of the single ticket you get when you're born. And you collect these tickets all through your life - flying in airplanes a lot, staying in the sun a lot, smoking, etc. You just never know which lotto you're in so it's hard to say, with today's technology, how it will affect you. That's why some people smoke till their 90 without a problem and others get lung cancer much younger. Different lottos.