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> To identify a “safe” level of alcohol consumption, valid scientific evidence would need to demonstrate that at and below a certain level, there is no risk of illness or injury associated with alcohol consumption. The new WHO statement clarifies: currently available evidence cannot indicate the existence of a threshold at which the carcinogenic effects of alcohol “switch on” and start to manifest in the human body.
The headline is not accurate it looks like. The article states that we don’t know if occasional drinking is harmful. And it makes sense we don’t know, because you can’t do an effective longitudinal study where you compare very light drinking to no drinking because the expected effect size is small and all the confounders will muddy the water.
Toasted bread and cinnamon are carcinogenic but I can’t imagine a WHO headline asserting that “no amount of cinnamon is safe for your health”.
""no amount of cinnamon is safe for your health"".
This is the point I was making when I posted my earlier facetious point about life being fatal.
If we'd studied the effects of many other common day-to-day chemicals or foodstuffs that we take for granted in our lives to the extent we'd studied ethanol then we'd likely find them equally or even more dangerous.
Keep in mind we all produce small amounts of ethanol as the result of digestion, similarly so methanol which is far more dangerous than ethanol. These are a part of the life cycle whether we like it or not.
It would be much more helpful if WHO would accept the fact that all humans process small amounts of alcohol and likely always will and instead concentrate on minimizing the harmful consumption thereof.
PS: spare a thought for those comparatively rare but unfortunate individuals who fail breathalyzer tests when they've not been drinking because their gut microbes produce sufficient ethanol to trigger tests. Phrases like 'no amount' aren't helpful.
you don't need the cinnamon, just the toast [studies say]
Saving you a click: https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-...
And this is the Lancet article summarising the research: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2...
The proportion of cancers attributable to alcohol is 4.1% of all cases, from [1]. Of that, the ‘Light to Moderate’ alcohol category (<=1.5L of wine per week or <=3.5L of beer per week) had 13.3% of cases for alcohol-attributable cancers and 2.3% of alcohol-related cancer cases.
1. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2...
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/kn...
There probably a story somewhere as to why cigarettes get big labels and beer cans don't.
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?!?".
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.
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)
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.
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.
I understand that the statement "only no alcohol is really safe" is correct. But it is not helpful in my everyday life. Exactly the same problem exists with gasoline. It is simply not possible (or extremely costly) to completely avoid the substance or their effects. To refuse a beer in Germany is an affront that I would like to weigh against the risk of cancer.
In fact, I have found information on the question: The daily consumption of 50 grams of pure alcohol - equivalent to about 1.5 liters of beer or 0.5 liters of wine - increases the risk of cancer two- to threefold.
Continuously high alcohol consumption is also one of the main causes of liver cancer. Consuming more than 80 grams of alcohol (about 2 liters of beer) per day increases the risk of liver cancer by a factor of four to seven. Women have a significantly higher alcohol-related liver cancer risk than men.
Increased risk of cancer of the colon and rectum begins at four glasses per day. Compared to people living abstinent from alcohol, this increases the risk of cancer by 1.4 times.
The risk of breast cancer in women increases from just one daily glass of an alcoholic beverage (e.g. 0.3 liters of beer). Each additional glass increases the risk by about seven percent.
Source: https://www.kenn-dein-limit.de/alkoholkonsum/folgen-von-alko... (the website is from a German authority that provides information about addiction, etc.)
What's fascinating about this isn't the study itself - it's the reactions people here are having.
From "I guess that means fruit juice should be illegal since it can contain alcohol!" to "Life leads to death too!". Just any justification to call the WHO's point bunk.
Denial, in a word.
This is the world's leading body on science health giving a result that I'm guessing most of us don't want to hear. Because we like alcohol and want to be told we're right for liking it.
I think the result is completely true. Just the same, I plan to keep occasionally drinking a beer, the same as I occasionally consume horrendously unhealthy food or spend too long in front of a computer screen. It's okay to do unhealthy things in moderation.
But if being told it would be best to drink only in moderation, if at all, triggers an angry response and denial, maybe you should have a sit down and think about what that means.
I'm sure many folks here will be familiar with Andrew Huberman. If not, I highly recommend listing to his podcast, The Huberman Lab Podcast. Relevant to this discussion is his brilliant episode on alcohol [1]: "What Alcohol Does to Your Body, Brain & Health". Boy, was this episode a life-changing listen for me. The conclusion is the same as the linked study, that no level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health.
[1] https://hubermanlab.com/what-alcohol-does-to-your-body-brain...
Reading through the comments here there seems to be much negative sentiment against this study. But what they are right? What if alcohol is actually just bad for you full stop. Would this really be that shocking or controversial that a known poison is poisonous?
Ethanol is metabolized to acetaldehyde in the body.
Acetaldehyde causes DNA damage.
It would be very useful to rate all sorts of things in terms of the effect on life expectancy so people could make educated decisions. Is one serving of beer/wine better or worse than being say 5kg over weight? Or 2 portions of red meat? Or living next to a main road?
Without the ability to actually measure these numbers and compare them we don't actually know anything. This is data but not information...
I’ve not had drink in 15 years and I’m 35. I stopped for a number of reasons but the main one was that when I had a drink I became a fairly unpleasant person. Seeing friends around me evolve their relationship with alcohol has been interesting. Many have reduced their intake over years, some have drifted it up and without a doubt those who drink less are healthier and happier.
None have been able to go tea total for more than a few months but are happy I am as always being sober comes in handy sometimes (dealing with emergencies primarily when out/away from home)
I stopped drinking due to the pandemic. Which was probably good for my health but bad for my social life.
On the other hand, I probably would have developed better social skills, if I didn't start drinking socially earlier in my life.
Neither is life, it eventually kills you.
> valid scientific evidence would need to demonstrate that at and below a certain level, there is no risk of illness or injury associated with alcohol
Could by the same logic be argued that no kilometer traveled by car/bus/plane is safe for your health?
In other words, isn't this totally useless?
Time to start treating it as any other drug then. Bring back the prohibition, throw the users, producers, sellers and so on to jail. It is least we can do to protect the young from it.
We know that banning alcohol doesn’t work. We should do what we did for tobacco. Ban advertisements for alcohol. Do the same for other vice. If consenting adults want to engage in vice that doesn’t hurt other people such as gambling, alcohol, etc. then allow it. Just don’t allow it to be advertised.
Can’t deny that as someone who has abstained from alcohol my entire life, feeling pretty smart every time more of these studies come out.
I bet sugar is even more harmful, yet I doubt there will be any raising of awareness on that front (from the health industry). I think removing sugar from most foods in the grocery store would have much more impact than banning all alcohol. It just seems the priorities on harmful substances are not in order, from a perspective of a healthy society.
I mean this comes not as surprise to anyone who’s had a drink or a few.
I enjoy a drink on occasion but the after effects are noticeable. I mean your body tells you the next day.
Though an occasional drink reduces stress, which is a positive effect, though it’s not advised to use as medicine.
Alcohol's ill effects have been known for awhile, but alcohol companies continuously undermined studies that would conclusively demonstrate it. Basically, unless you're older and have a certain type of heart disease that alcohol may help, the costs of alcohol are always greater than the benefits. Then again, this is up for the individual to decide, whether they believe their perceived benefits outweigh the potential health costs. At least now, they can make a more informed choice knowing the risks involved.
There is more solid evidence for alcohol causing cancer than for RoundUp(glyphosate). Yet people will happily have a beer while discussing how evil Monsanto is.
By failing to note that moderate (or lower) consumption is associated with less than 1% of global “alcohol attributed cancer”, while raising the specter of cancer itself as a leading cause of death, they’ve basically just behaved like shrill, manipulative prohibitionists instead of scientists.
“All alcohol consumption appears to be harmful” can be stated without “OMG CANCER UR GONNA DIE” equivalents if you are serious and responsible.
All cause mortality is lower among light drinkers than non-drinkers.
Small doses of harms are typically beneficial. Not all harm is bad, and safety is not always desirable.
Why link reddit not the original source? https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-...
In other news: obsessing irrationally over one's health is unsafe for one's health.
Newer duplicate linking to real source and with more conversation:
Not even zero?
No fruit juice then.
One needs a stiff drink to cope with such bad news!
"No level is safe " should probably be the new norm for all kinds of chemicals, especially Roundup...
This needs a true cost-benefit analysis. Thats what we do for any type of medical intervention. Some surgeries are super risky and some drugs have severe side effects that can kill you. Still, the overall benefit is positive.
Benefits: reduced stress, increased social interactions, improved mood
Costs: reduced lifespan, liver issues, addiction
I’ll bet the benefits outway the costs over an entire population. Maybe not by much, but i bet its a net benefit.
Yet there's no scary labels about alcohol "about to kill you" on bottles sold in the market.
This does not even talk about neurodegeneration.
what, even a microgram a day? well, sod it [slurps first large g&t of the day].
Drinking alcohol is Lindy.
Is there a shortage of alcohol?
So we can expect conflicting advice and maybe even some backpedaling in a few days?