5 ms·

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

68 points by brimnes 5y ago

Day1 5y ago
Is more comprehensive labeling and related regulations a strategy for incumbents to further solidify their monopolies?
- brimnes 5y ago
  Seems like the industry wasn't a fan when the Yukon government tried warning labels: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yukon-alcohol-warning-labels-study-results-1.5556344 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yukon-alcohol-warning-l...
GuB-42 5y ago
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 hangovers. If the threshold is zero, it means that even "safe", easily metabolized alcohol is a problem and we should find correlations even between non-drinkers based on diet.
- nitwit005 5y ago
  I previously read an article about alcohol and safety, which made a similar claim. The lowest level of alcohol consumption in their data was two drinks a day. They had no idea if there was a safe amount below that. I'd assume it's a talking point that activists have adopted.
- DarylZero 5y ago
  Probably they're not even considering quantities that are much less than a single drink.
- resoluteteeth 5y ago
  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.
Beaver117 5y ago
Doesn't everything in California have a cancer warning? They're meaningless.
- treeman79 5y ago
  Money maker for lawyers. You get a fee if you find non-compliance. As with most things. Follow the money.
rapjr9 5y ago
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 lotions, fragrances, titanium dioxide (used in food, do you like eating metal catalysts?), and all the rest, separately and in combinations. All ignored for decades. If they can sequence DNA they can test all these substances for harm. Don't tell me it's too difficult, get cracking and you'll finish sooner. And now they want to convince me one particular chemical, widely used for millennia is the cause of a 50% increase in cancer risk? What's that 50% applied to? A 0.01% base risk? Where does all the base risk come from and is it greater than the risk from alcohol? Is it the combination of other chemicals and alcohol that raises cancer risk? Nuclear fallout from atomic bomb tests is still in everything across the world. Silica dust from Africa is in our air. Air pollution from ICE engines is everywhere, layered for decades in the soil along with the lead that used to be in gasoline. What's the risk from that? Why don't we have warning labels on gasoline pumps, and cars, and cities, and plastics? Should everyone be suing the USA, Russia, and China for above ground nuclear tests and the car makers and oil producers for polluting the air? There are unavoidable risks from radiation from space and the radiation in the soil and rock varies by locality so where you live may be a bigger determinant of cancer risk than what you drink. The medical research community just doesn't have much credibility when it comes to cancer causes. Particularly after the Surgeon General did nothing except a few press releases for decades about cigarettes. Stop doing all those useless, underpowered, non-blind, studies that even researchers don't trust and start putting some effort into finding cures and doing real research instead of only looking for drugs that have minor effect and are a burden on the economy. /rant
- halpert 5y ago
  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.
Leary 5y ago
Is there a scientific consensus on 0.1g-7g/week of alcohol causing cancer? I know there are studies that exclude former drinkers in the reference group that purport it, but it's not clear to me. And I have not seen studies that show <7g/week of wine drinking causing cancer.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  7g of wine at 15% would be ~1.15g of alcohol. This does fall in the range but we should pay attention to the specificity of being alcohol and not alcoholic beverage
bryik 5y ago
> "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 1 has the same (or even approximately the same) risk of causing cancer. How could eating cold cuts from a deli be equivalent to smoking a cigarette or inhaling mustard gas? > The risk of dying from lung cancer before age 85 is 22.1% for a male smoker and 11.9% for a female smoker, in the absence of competing causes of death. The corresponding estimates for lifelong nonsmokers are a 1.1% probability of dying from lung cancer before age 85 for a man of European descent, and a 0.8% probability for a woman.[1] *This* is the kind of smoking gun they should be showing; ~20% increase in the chance of dying from lung cancer for men who smoke. How much does alcohol increase chances of dying from cancer? 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IARC_group_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IARC_group_1 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_tobacco#Cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_tobacco#Canc...
- mrkstu 5y ago
  Looks like about 4% of all cases of cancer can be attributed to alcohol consumption: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(21)00279-5/fulltext 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.
nikolay 5y ago
No, it shouldn't! It's all about the dose. Drink too much water and you're dead!

68 points by brimnes 5y ago

Day1 5y ago

Is more comprehensive labeling and related regulations a strategy for incumbents to further solidify their monopolies?

brimnes 5y ago
Seems like the industry wasn't a fan when the Yukon government tried warning labels: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yukon-alcohol-warning-labels-study-results-1.5556344 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yukon-alcohol-warning-l...

GuB-42 5y ago

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 hangovers. If the threshold is zero, it means that even "safe", easily metabolized alcohol is a problem and we should find correlations even between non-drinkers based on diet.

nitwit005 5y ago
I previously read an article about alcohol and safety, which made a similar claim. The lowest level of alcohol consumption in their data was two drinks a day. They had no idea if there was a safe amount below that. I'd assume it's a talking point that activists have adopted.
DarylZero 5y ago
Probably they're not even considering quantities that are much less than a single drink.
resoluteteeth 5y ago
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.

Beaver117 5y ago

Doesn't everything in California have a cancer warning? They're meaningless.

treeman79 5y ago
Money maker for lawyers. You get a fee if you find non-compliance. As with most things. Follow the money.

rapjr9 5y ago

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 lotions, fragrances, titanium dioxide (used in food, do you like eating metal catalysts?), and all the rest, separately and in combinations. All ignored for decades. If they can sequence DNA they can test all these substances for harm. Don't tell me it's too difficult, get cracking and you'll finish sooner. And now they want to convince me one particular chemical, widely used for millennia is the cause of a 50% increase in cancer risk? What's that 50% applied to? A 0.01% base risk? Where does all the base risk come from and is it greater than the risk from alcohol? Is it the combination of other chemicals and alcohol that raises cancer risk? Nuclear fallout from atomic bomb tests is still in everything across the world. Silica dust from Africa is in our air. Air pollution from ICE engines is everywhere, layered for decades in the soil along with the lead that used to be in gasoline. What's the risk from that? Why don't we have warning labels on gasoline pumps, and cars, and cities, and plastics? Should everyone be suing the USA, Russia, and China for above ground nuclear tests and the car makers and oil producers for polluting the air? There are unavoidable risks from radiation from space and the radiation in the soil and rock varies by locality so where you live may be a bigger determinant of cancer risk than what you drink. The medical research community just doesn't have much credibility when it comes to cancer causes. Particularly after the Surgeon General did nothing except a few press releases for decades about cigarettes. Stop doing all those useless, underpowered, non-blind, studies that even researchers don't trust and start putting some effort into finding cures and doing real research instead of only looking for drugs that have minor effect and are a burden on the economy. /rant

halpert 5y ago
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.

Leary 5y ago

Is there a scientific consensus on 0.1g-7g/week of alcohol causing cancer? I know there are studies that exclude former drinkers in the reference group that purport it, but it's not clear to me. And I have not seen studies that show <7g/week of wine drinking causing cancer.

netizen-936824 5y ago
7g of wine at 15% would be ~1.15g of alcohol. This does fall in the range but we should pay attention to the specificity of being alcohol and not alcoholic beverage

bryik 5y ago

> "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 1 has the same (or even approximately the same) risk of causing cancer. How could eating cold cuts from a deli be equivalent to smoking a cigarette or inhaling mustard gas? > The risk of dying from lung cancer before age 85 is 22.1% for a male smoker and 11.9% for a female smoker, in the absence of competing causes of death. The corresponding estimates for lifelong nonsmokers are a 1.1% probability of dying from lung cancer before age 85 for a man of European descent, and a 0.8% probability for a woman.[1] *This* is the kind of smoking gun they should be showing; ~20% increase in the chance of dying from lung cancer for men who smoke. How much does alcohol increase chances of dying from cancer? 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IARC_group_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IARC_group_1 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_tobacco#Cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_tobacco#Canc...

mrkstu 5y ago
Looks like about 4% of all cases of cancer can be attributed to alcohol consumption: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(21)00279-5/fulltext 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.

nikolay 5y ago

No, it shouldn't! It's all about the dose. Drink too much water and you're dead!