4 ms·

That study's introduction is a little disingenuous and frankly a little alarmist. To break it down: Edit: Just to be clear, I'm not trying to disprove the stu

That study's introduction is a little disingenuous and frankly a little alarmist. To break it down: Edit: Just to be clear, I'm not trying to disprove the study. I simply think their introduction is needlessly hyperbolic. "Alcohol consumption is a well-established risk factor for a range of cancers, accounting for approximately 4% of new cancer cases annually [1, 2]." The first citation is pay-walled, so I can't confirm, but the abstract states "The net effect of alcohol consumption on health is detrimental, with an estimated 3.8% of all global deaths and 4.6% of global disability-adjusted life-years attributable to alcohol." It says nothing about cancer specifically, but this could just be a vague abstract. Perhaps the data holds up, but a very large fraction of that 3.8% and 4.6% would have to be due to cancer. I'm skeptical. The second citation however is blatantly misrepresented. It appears to be where the 4% number comes from, but it is UK specific (and almost certainly influenced by UK-specific drinking habits). The authors by contrast present it in a general context. Likewise it's worth noting that the source puts quitting smoking, keeping a healthy weight, and eating more fruits/vegetables as more important in preventing cancer than reducing alcohol consumption. And even at UK levels it's apparently only marginally more important than reducing sun exposure (also a UK-specific result). They go on to effectively support the statement "alcohol increases cancer risk" in detail and I guess I can't blame them for wanting to grab the reader's attention, but scientific spin doctoring and lack of hard numbers irks me regardless of context. As for alcohol companies telling their customers as little as legally required about the negative effects of alcohol, I'm glad they put some numbers on the issue but I think we can file that in the "no shit" folder. The policy makers/lesson planners/etc they appear to aim the study at are almost certainly well aware of the concept of conflict-of-interest, and if they aren't then I doubt they're literate enough to be swayed by this study.

mohawk 9y ago
Go to Google Scholar and type in the paper's title - often there will be a link to a publically available copy of the pdf, such as is the case for reference 1. And you sound like you made up your mind before even really digging into the literature. Your first job as a scientist is to not fool yourself.
- scottLobster 9y ago
  I did exactly that actually. The only link to the study I could find in 5 minutes of searching is paywalled. I'm not going to pay $31.50 just to make a point on HN.
  - mohawk 9y ago
    http://www.lunaliving.org/pdf/global-burden-of-disease-and-injury.pdf http://www.lunaliving.org/pdf/global-burden-of-disease-and-i... The link is on the right next to the google scholar search results.
    - bonniemuffin 9y ago
      Based on the tables in this paper, alcohol-caused cancer is responsible for 0.8% of deaths. I don't see how the numbers in the paper could be used to calculate a value of 4% for any statistic related to alcohol+cancer.
      - Someone 9y ago
        I read it as 0.8% of all deaths, not of only the deaths caused by cancer. I think that is the most logical reading. If that's correct, I get at that 4% this way: according to https://www.cancer.org/content/dam/cancer-org/research/cancer-facts-and-statistics/annual-cancer-facts-and-figures/2017/lifetime-probability-of-developing-and-dying-from-cancer-2011-2013.pdf https://www.cancer.org/content/dam/cancer-org/research/cance..., about 20% of all deaths are caused by cancer. If, of that 20%, 0.8% is caused by alcohol-induced cancer, 4% of all deaths caused by cancer are caused by alcohol-induced cancer.
    - zo1 9y ago
      I think the confusing part is trying to click on the "result". The PDF link is usually on the right, next to the title.
ajross 9y ago
> but it is UK specific (and almost certainly influenced by UK drinking habits). You lost me here. What exactly is your hypothesis about UK "drinking habits" that causes brits to get cancer at significantly higher rates than the rest of the world? All studies have to study some accessible subset of humanity. This one picked the UK. I mean, it's OK to ask for rigor and point out problems with research, but this is an awfully big whopper of your own. You don't get to just dismiss a fairly straightforward result because warm beer.
- scottLobster 9y ago
  Uh... quantity for starters. Not that the UK drinks the most, that honor apparently goes to Belarus according to the WHO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_c...), but the study itself states a dose-relationship response to some forms of cancer. Therefore the amount of alcohol a population consumes would affect the 4% number, and the UK is demonstrably not a representative sample of the rest of the world. There are also biological/ethnic factors. Native Americans are more susceptible to alcoholism, and Asian populations are more likely to be allergic to alcohol. There are also regional differences in diet and the type of alcohol consumed, even when and how it's consumed. You can't just take a 4% number from one region and apply it generally.
  - ajross 9y ago
    Surely the study you cite was about a correlation to quantity and cancer, though, which would mean they've already corrected for that. To do otherwise would be laughably awful science. If you want to make that assertion, you need to show that the study is flawed, not just assert that you personally believe they are idiots who don't know how to get a paper published. And the stuff about alcoholism and allergies[1] is just you flailing to find an excuse to discredit a result you don't like. That's not the way science works. At all. [1] FWIW: it's not an allergy at all. East asians are more likely to carry a defective gene for alcohol dehydrogenase, meaning that ethanol metabolism goes through a different process in their bodies and tends to produce an inflamation response.

mohawk 9y ago

Go to Google Scholar and type in the paper's title - often there will be a link to a publically available copy of the pdf, such as is the case for reference 1. And you sound like you made up your mind before even really digging into the literature. Your first job as a scientist is to not fool yourself.

scottLobster 9y ago
I did exactly that actually. The only link to the study I could find in 5 minutes of searching is paywalled. I'm not going to pay $31.50 just to make a point on HN.
- mohawk 9y ago
  http://www.lunaliving.org/pdf/global-burden-of-disease-and-injury.pdf http://www.lunaliving.org/pdf/global-burden-of-disease-and-i... The link is on the right next to the google scholar search results.
  - bonniemuffin 9y ago
    Based on the tables in this paper, alcohol-caused cancer is responsible for 0.8% of deaths. I don't see how the numbers in the paper could be used to calculate a value of 4% for any statistic related to alcohol+cancer.
    - Someone 9y ago
      I read it as 0.8% of all deaths, not of only the deaths caused by cancer. I think that is the most logical reading. If that's correct, I get at that 4% this way: according to https://www.cancer.org/content/dam/cancer-org/research/cancer-facts-and-statistics/annual-cancer-facts-and-figures/2017/lifetime-probability-of-developing-and-dying-from-cancer-2011-2013.pdf https://www.cancer.org/content/dam/cancer-org/research/cance..., about 20% of all deaths are caused by cancer. If, of that 20%, 0.8% is caused by alcohol-induced cancer, 4% of all deaths caused by cancer are caused by alcohol-induced cancer.
  - zo1 9y ago
    I think the confusing part is trying to click on the "result". The PDF link is usually on the right, next to the title.

ajross 9y ago

> but it is UK specific (and almost certainly influenced by UK drinking habits). You lost me here. What exactly is your hypothesis about UK "drinking habits" that causes brits to get cancer at significantly higher rates than the rest of the world? All studies have to study some accessible subset of humanity. This one picked the UK. I mean, it's OK to ask for rigor and point out problems with research, but this is an awfully big whopper of your own. You don't get to just dismiss a fairly straightforward result because warm beer.

scottLobster 9y ago
Uh... quantity for starters. Not that the UK drinks the most, that honor apparently goes to Belarus according to the WHO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_c...), but the study itself states a dose-relationship response to some forms of cancer. Therefore the amount of alcohol a population consumes would affect the 4% number, and the UK is demonstrably not a representative sample of the rest of the world. There are also biological/ethnic factors. Native Americans are more susceptible to alcoholism, and Asian populations are more likely to be allergic to alcohol. There are also regional differences in diet and the type of alcohol consumed, even when and how it's consumed. You can't just take a 4% number from one region and apply it generally.
- ajross 9y ago
  Surely the study you cite was about a correlation to quantity and cancer, though, which would mean they've already corrected for that. To do otherwise would be laughably awful science. If you want to make that assertion, you need to show that the study is flawed, not just assert that you personally believe they are idiots who don't know how to get a paper published. And the stuff about alcoholism and allergies[1] is just you flailing to find an excuse to discredit a result you don't like. That's not the way science works. At all. [1] FWIW: it's not an allergy at all. East asians are more likely to carry a defective gene for alcohol dehydrogenase, meaning that ethanol metabolism goes through a different process in their bodies and tends to produce an inflamation response.