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Well according to the American Cancer Society, alcoholic beverages are a Group 1 Carcinogen. Right up there with Asbestos, UV radiation, Tobacco smoke, and Dies

Well according to the American Cancer Society, alcoholic beverages are a Group 1 Carcinogen. Right up there with Asbestos, UV radiation, Tobacco smoke, and Diesel exhaust. https://www.cancer.org/healthy/cancer-causes/general-info/known-and-probable-human-carcinogens.html https://www.cancer.org/healthy/cancer-causes/general-info/kn... There probably a story somewhere as to why cigarettes get big labels and beer cans don't.

zabzonk 4y ago
the story is that cigarettes are well researched and documented to cause agressive lung cancers, heart disease and many other problems. the story on alcohol is much less clear and even if true, much lower risk
- fsloth 4y ago
  "the story on alcohol is much less clear and if it even true, much lower risk" What? Afaik alcohol is pretty well known to increase risks of several cancers in population. Individual response to alcohol is of course a much more complex topic with genetics affecting a large palette of physiological and neurological responses to alcohol. For populations - alcohol is a health risk. For individual - the narrative is far more nuanced (more risk for some than others etc).
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    The article mentions that it is not widely known that alcohol causes cancer. Used to be the same with cigarettes. We need to change that!
- epmaybe 4y ago
  This is correct. Do you know what percent of lung cancer is attributable to smoking? 90%! 9/10 lung cancer deaths are attributable to smoking. Compare this to ~5% of cancer related death attributable to alcohol use. It's just not even an accurate comparison. To be honest though? I am willing to bet that cost to healthcare system for alcohol related illness is outpacing that of smoking related illness. Cirrhosis of the liver is a very costly disease when it gets close to end stage.
  - zabzonk 4y ago
    cost to healthcare is certainly high where some individuals are concerned, as any one who has been in accident & emergency on a saturday night will observe. but of course the vast majority of people that drink on saturday night do NOT end up in A&E.
  - johnaspden 4y ago
    Comparing 90% to 5% would be very silly. What percentage of cancer-related deaths are attributable to tobacco use? (In the same sense of "attributable" as for the alcohol?)
    - zabzonk 4y ago
      https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/risk/tobacco https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-...
zwirbl 4y ago
Possibly because beer can be fun and cigarettes are just highly addictive
- deely3 4y ago
  Sometime its other way around.
- meowfly 4y ago
  You could say the same thing about coffee. There is a reason nicotine is addictive and popular. It's mildly enjoyable. UK's old drug czar, David Nutt, got in trouble for calling alcohol Britain's most dangerous drug. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11660210 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11660210
aflag 4y ago
I think the fact that smoking forces others around you to smoke, whereas drinking doesn't is a big part of it. Along with the fact that drinking occasionally is far more common than smoking occasionally. Nicotine is far more adictive.
- nickjj 4y ago
  > I think the fact that smoking forces others around you to smoke, whereas drinking doesn't is a big part of it. I'd be curious if cooking with wine falls into this category of affecting others. For example, at a restaurant if a meal has a little bit of wine in its sauce will that be listed on the menu or would it be added behind the scenes sort of like you wouldn't expect to see "garlic powder" or "pepper" listed on the menu for what's on a steak.
  - TOMDM 4y ago
    For most recipes involving wine, the alcohol in the dish will have evaporated long before it arrives at your table.
    - dbspin 4y ago
      Friend of mine in recovery pointed out recently that this isn't true. In fact depending on the other ingredients and cooking duration, there may well be quite a bit of alcohol by volume in any 'wine sauce' or similar dish. It's the water that will evaporate first "Meats and baked goods that are cooked for 25 minutes without being stirred retain 45 percent of alcohol." https://www.isu.edu/news/2019-fall/no-worries-the-alcohol-burns-off-during-cookingbut-does-it-really.html https://www.isu.edu/news/2019-fall/no-worries-the-alcohol-bu...
      - TOMDM 4y ago
        Huh, today I learned, thank you! I guess I can update towards "most of it will probably be cooked off" but 45% is still non negligible for a lot of scenarios. And even 5% remaining after 2.5 hours of boiling means that I should probably expect some alcohol no matter what.
JBiserkov 4y ago
There's a video of a journalist asking a Russian official "Why do cigarettes say 'Smoking kills' on the pack, but vodka has no such label on the bottle?" to which the official replies "Why would vodka say 'Smoking kills' on the bottle?!?".
- ascotan 4y ago
  lmao
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
in the same group you'll find solar radiation (yes, literally the Sun light), UVs (A,B and C), X-ray and many other substances and/or radiations we are exposed to on a daily basis. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IARC_group_1_Carcinogens https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IARC_group_1_Carcinogens
- fsloth 4y ago
  I've known people who died from skin cancer and who died from late term alcoholism with pancreatic cancer. I guess dosage matters, even though the effect would be daily available.
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    My dad worked in pulmonar oncology. A lot of people that die of cancer never drank a sip of alcohol or smoked a cigarette. Alcohol increases the risk factor, but it's not like tobacco, alcohol is correlated to an increase of breast cancer and oral cavity cancer at maximum 20-25% more. 20-25% means 1.2-1.25 times, tobacco increases the risk 2,000-2,500% which means 20-25 times. If you look at the stats in my country for oral cavity tumor, men risk (of getting it, survival rate after 5 years is over 60%) is 6 / 100,000, women risk is at 2.2/100,000. So a woman drinking heavily will see her risk go up to 2.75, which is still half the risk of men. That's the kind of risk we are talking about here. In perspective, if it was about tobacco the risk would go up from 2.2 to 55. A bit different, isn't it? People react to these headlines in the wrong way: they confuse "risk increases" with "certain death". It's not like that, still a lot of cancer patients had a completely normal almost risk free life and we don't know why they got it, the only thing for sure is that it ran into their families. That's the biggest risk of them all. And do not forget that age is a big risk factor too, one of the biggest. Back to oral cavity cancer: in my Country average age of the diagnosis is 64, 95% of them are diagnosed after the age of 40. Something to take into account, I think.
whynotmaybe 4y ago
I guess it's cultural. Human consumption of alcoholic beverages goes back to thousands of years while tobacco has been used in Europe since the 15th century when it was brought back from America. Wine is present in the Bible and used in Christian churches during mass. It is also used in Jewish celebrations and holidays. Tobacco doesn't have the same history and cultural impact. From what I understand it is/was mainly "spiritually" used by American Natives for shamanic celebrations. (I can clearly be wrong on that)
- antb123 4y ago
  Also second hand smoke
TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
I was surprised to learn that list does not contain nicotine (only tobacco).
- billfruit 4y ago
  Perhaps the carcinogens in cigarette are the various products of combustion, whereas nicotine is the addictive component?
- zabzonk 4y ago
  nicotine is not a carcinogen
josefx 4y ago
From the bullet points on top of the list: > The lists describe the level of evidence that something can cause cancer, not how likely it is that something will cause cancer in any person (or how much it might raise your risk). For example, IARC considers there to be strong evidence that both tobacco smoking and eating processed meat can cause cancer, so both are listed as “carcinogenic to humans.” But smoking is much more likely to cause cancer than eating processed meat, even though both are in the same category.
stephen_g 4y ago
It’s a matter of proportion. A normal smoking habit puts somebody at (if I remember correctly) something like a 50% chance of dying early from a smoking-caused disease. As another reply to your commenter said, as much as 90% of lung cancers are cause by smoking. In comparison, this study is talking about an estimated 4.1% of cancer cases being attributable to alcohol, and only 13.3% of that for the ‘light to moderate’ category, which many would consider still a fairly substantial consumption. It’s not nothing, and yes, there needs to be stronger messaging about the dangers of heavy drinking, binge drinking etc., but having a couple (2-4) of beers or glasses of wine a week is not massively increasing your risk of cancer, much more than just living somewhere with high UV or a lot of roads.

zabzonk 4y ago

the story is that cigarettes are well researched and documented to cause agressive lung cancers, heart disease and many other problems. the story on alcohol is much less clear and even if true, much lower risk

fsloth 4y ago
"the story on alcohol is much less clear and if it even true, much lower risk" What? Afaik alcohol is pretty well known to increase risks of several cancers in population. Individual response to alcohol is of course a much more complex topic with genetics affecting a large palette of physiological and neurological responses to alcohol. For populations - alcohol is a health risk. For individual - the narrative is far more nuanced (more risk for some than others etc).
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  The article mentions that it is not widely known that alcohol causes cancer. Used to be the same with cigarettes. We need to change that!
epmaybe 4y ago
This is correct. Do you know what percent of lung cancer is attributable to smoking? 90%! 9/10 lung cancer deaths are attributable to smoking. Compare this to ~5% of cancer related death attributable to alcohol use. It's just not even an accurate comparison. To be honest though? I am willing to bet that cost to healthcare system for alcohol related illness is outpacing that of smoking related illness. Cirrhosis of the liver is a very costly disease when it gets close to end stage.
- zabzonk 4y ago
  cost to healthcare is certainly high where some individuals are concerned, as any one who has been in accident & emergency on a saturday night will observe. but of course the vast majority of people that drink on saturday night do NOT end up in A&E.
- johnaspden 4y ago
  Comparing 90% to 5% would be very silly. What percentage of cancer-related deaths are attributable to tobacco use? (In the same sense of "attributable" as for the alcohol?)
  - zabzonk 4y ago
    https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/risk/tobacco https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-...

zwirbl 4y ago

Possibly because beer can be fun and cigarettes are just highly addictive

deely3 4y ago
Sometime its other way around.
meowfly 4y ago
You could say the same thing about coffee. There is a reason nicotine is addictive and popular. It's mildly enjoyable. UK's old drug czar, David Nutt, got in trouble for calling alcohol Britain's most dangerous drug. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11660210 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11660210

aflag 4y ago

I think the fact that smoking forces others around you to smoke, whereas drinking doesn't is a big part of it. Along with the fact that drinking occasionally is far more common than smoking occasionally. Nicotine is far more adictive.

nickjj 4y ago
> I think the fact that smoking forces others around you to smoke, whereas drinking doesn't is a big part of it. I'd be curious if cooking with wine falls into this category of affecting others. For example, at a restaurant if a meal has a little bit of wine in its sauce will that be listed on the menu or would it be added behind the scenes sort of like you wouldn't expect to see "garlic powder" or "pepper" listed on the menu for what's on a steak.
- TOMDM 4y ago
  For most recipes involving wine, the alcohol in the dish will have evaporated long before it arrives at your table.
  - dbspin 4y ago
    Friend of mine in recovery pointed out recently that this isn't true. In fact depending on the other ingredients and cooking duration, there may well be quite a bit of alcohol by volume in any 'wine sauce' or similar dish. It's the water that will evaporate first "Meats and baked goods that are cooked for 25 minutes without being stirred retain 45 percent of alcohol." https://www.isu.edu/news/2019-fall/no-worries-the-alcohol-burns-off-during-cookingbut-does-it-really.html https://www.isu.edu/news/2019-fall/no-worries-the-alcohol-bu...
    - TOMDM 4y ago
      Huh, today I learned, thank you! I guess I can update towards "most of it will probably be cooked off" but 45% is still non negligible for a lot of scenarios. And even 5% remaining after 2.5 hours of boiling means that I should probably expect some alcohol no matter what.

JBiserkov 4y ago

There's a video of a journalist asking a Russian official "Why do cigarettes say 'Smoking kills' on the pack, but vodka has no such label on the bottle?" to which the official replies "Why would vodka say 'Smoking kills' on the bottle?!?".

ascotan 4y ago
lmao

peoplefromibiza 4y ago

in the same group you'll find solar radiation (yes, literally the Sun light), UVs (A,B and C), X-ray and many other substances and/or radiations we are exposed to on a daily basis. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IARC_group_1_Carcinogens https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IARC_group_1_Carcinogens

fsloth 4y ago
I've known people who died from skin cancer and who died from late term alcoholism with pancreatic cancer. I guess dosage matters, even though the effect would be daily available.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  My dad worked in pulmonar oncology. A lot of people that die of cancer never drank a sip of alcohol or smoked a cigarette. Alcohol increases the risk factor, but it's not like tobacco, alcohol is correlated to an increase of breast cancer and oral cavity cancer at maximum 20-25% more. 20-25% means 1.2-1.25 times, tobacco increases the risk 2,000-2,500% which means 20-25 times. If you look at the stats in my country for oral cavity tumor, men risk (of getting it, survival rate after 5 years is over 60%) is 6 / 100,000, women risk is at 2.2/100,000. So a woman drinking heavily will see her risk go up to 2.75, which is still half the risk of men. That's the kind of risk we are talking about here. In perspective, if it was about tobacco the risk would go up from 2.2 to 55. A bit different, isn't it? People react to these headlines in the wrong way: they confuse "risk increases" with "certain death". It's not like that, still a lot of cancer patients had a completely normal almost risk free life and we don't know why they got it, the only thing for sure is that it ran into their families. That's the biggest risk of them all. And do not forget that age is a big risk factor too, one of the biggest. Back to oral cavity cancer: in my Country average age of the diagnosis is 64, 95% of them are diagnosed after the age of 40. Something to take into account, I think.

whynotmaybe 4y ago

I guess it's cultural. Human consumption of alcoholic beverages goes back to thousands of years while tobacco has been used in Europe since the 15th century when it was brought back from America. Wine is present in the Bible and used in Christian churches during mass. It is also used in Jewish celebrations and holidays. Tobacco doesn't have the same history and cultural impact. From what I understand it is/was mainly "spiritually" used by American Natives for shamanic celebrations. (I can clearly be wrong on that)

antb123 4y ago
Also second hand smoke

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago

I was surprised to learn that list does not contain nicotine (only tobacco).

billfruit 4y ago
Perhaps the carcinogens in cigarette are the various products of combustion, whereas nicotine is the addictive component?
zabzonk 4y ago
nicotine is not a carcinogen

josefx 4y ago

From the bullet points on top of the list: > The lists describe the level of evidence that something can cause cancer, not how likely it is that something will cause cancer in any person (or how much it might raise your risk). For example, IARC considers there to be strong evidence that both tobacco smoking and eating processed meat can cause cancer, so both are listed as “carcinogenic to humans.” But smoking is much more likely to cause cancer than eating processed meat, even though both are in the same category.

stephen_g 4y ago

It’s a matter of proportion. A normal smoking habit puts somebody at (if I remember correctly) something like a 50% chance of dying early from a smoking-caused disease. As another reply to your commenter said, as much as 90% of lung cancers are cause by smoking. In comparison, this study is talking about an estimated 4.1% of cancer cases being attributable to alcohol, and only 13.3% of that for the ‘light to moderate’ category, which many would consider still a fairly substantial consumption. It’s not nothing, and yes, there needs to be stronger messaging about the dangers of heavy drinking, binge drinking etc., but having a couple (2-4) of beers or glasses of wine a week is not massively increasing your risk of cancer, much more than just living somewhere with high UV or a lot of roads.