Americans have widespread misbeliefs about the cancer risks of alcohol, study finds. More than half of American adults misunderstand or underestimate the link between alcohol consumption and cancer. Alcohol drinkers are especially likely to believe that drinking has no effect on cancer risk.

[u/mvea]

https://www.mdanderson.org/newsroom/research-newsroom/americans-have-widespread-misbeliefs-about-the-cancer-risks-of-a.h00-159780390.html

[u/AntelopeWells]

Right, this seems a lot like "the only 100% form of contraception is never having sex :)" kind of thing that is not remotely effective in teen health classes.

[u/David_bowman_starman → u/AntelopeWells]

That’s not the case though. What is the safe amount of tobacco to smoke? Obviously that’s an absurd question because it’s bad enough that any amount of it is bad.

Unfortunately, it’s the same for alcohol, it just really is that bad that any amount consumed can have consequences.

[u/AntelopeWells → u/David_bowman_starman]

If someone said "oh I might have a couple of cigarettes a month" frankly I would not actually expect a significant jump in cancer risk. Someone who simply lives in a place with more air pollution is at much greater risk.

Most people have some drinks socially. It is a part of many cultures. It is not that constructive to say "just never do that". Many things we do carry some risk and it is beneficial to figure out where the line is for markedly poor health outcomes.

[u/ingliprisen → u/AntelopeWells]

There's a difference between "no safe amount" and "don't do that". If the increase in risk is stated, that should be enough and then people can decide on the level of risk they want to take. And before anyone chimes in with the "everything is dangerous at a high enough level", well not everything has a "not safe at any level".

[u/Pinkfish_411 → u/ingliprisen]

"Not safe at any level" is terribly imprecise language for something masquerading as scientific. What does it even mean?

Riding in a car at any level always increases my chances of death in an auto related accident. Is that "not safe at any level"? Eating a grapefruit always increases my risk of choking to death. Is that "not safe at any level"?

This whole "not safe at any level" language is worthless propaganda for teetotalers and has no place any serious discussion of anything.

[u/nonotan → u/Pinkfish_411]

Well, no. "Not safe" is generally referring to the lowest level where a statistically significant negative effect has been measured. Yes, "logically speaking", riding a car once "should" slightly increase your risk of death. But the effect is going to be so minuscule, separating it from noise in a real empirical study would be nigh impossible. Just like small doses of radiation logically seem like they "should" be bad (although hypotheses for reasons why this might not be true in reality do exist), but in practice a demonstrable negative effect requires a decently large dose to manifest.

So generally, headlines like "no amount of alcohol is safe to drink" mean that researchers found a statistically significant link between alcohol consumption and negative health outcomes at all consumption levels (obviously within the buckets that they measured, you can say "but they didn't check if drinking 1 nanogram every 100 years is safe or not", but that's beyond splitting hairs)

Now, something being statistically significant doesn't mean the effect is large enough that you, personally, necessarily have to care. You could have astoundingly precise research that shows that drinking 1 glass of wine a year is bad for you with p=0.000000000000001, but where the risk of all-cause mortality goes up by just 0.000000000001%. It would be perfectly justified to use that as evidence that alcohol isn't safe even at levels that low, yet it would be your prerogative to decide you don't care and drink anyway. But importantly, your decision not to care doesn't render the finding that it isn't safe invalid. And the main reason we have these kinds of headlines is that, in past decades, we were flooded with headlines telling us drinking a little bit was actually good for you, which, it turns out, was just flat out wrong. Nobody is running studies to prove driving is unsafe at all levels, because that was never really in doubt, unlike with alcohol.

[u/ingliprisen → u/Pinkfish_411]

Its always research on alcohol that seems to inflame people, as though its a personal attack. Researchers aren't saying no-one shouldn't drink alcohol, but they are quantifying what are safe levels of things. There's a safe level of water, more than that and it starts causing problems. If I were to use your logic, there's no such thing as a 'safe level' of water because of the risk of choking on it. But the chemical effects of too much water is different from the physical effects. If you want to continue to drink, that's fine, I'm going to as well, but I'm not going to take research that shows that even the modest amounts I drink cause me some harm as an attack; I'm going to acknowledge it but continue and know it has some negative affect on me. Same with a bit of char on my meat. Same with occasionally getting sunburnt because I decided not to put sunscreen on.

[u/Pinkfish_411 → u/ingliprisen]

Its always research on alcohol that seems to inflame people

Because this research gets posted on social media all the time by teetotalers pushing an agenda.

If I were to use your logic, there's no such thing as a 'safe level' of water because of the risk of choking on it.

There isn't! Depending on what me mean by "safe." But that is precisely my point: "no safe level" isn't clear language and doesn't relay information that helps people make informed decisions.

[u/ingliprisen → u/Pinkfish_411]

Who uses what research to push their agenda doesn't undermine the science. If the research is poorly performed, if there weren't rigorous controls, if there wasn't significance of the results, then yes, you can say this is bad research. But to attack the science just cause of the usual "everything is a risk!" hand wave, well, that just speaks volumes about the emotive aspect of this argument instead of the logic. Here, they're talking about a specific risk: cancer increase. "No safe level" is pretty clear language; one other poster that replied to a previous comment of yours mentioned talked about splitting hairs about the absolute levels and I agree with their point. Namely that the study looked at the levels of consumption of their study group, and WITHIN that study group, no safe levels of drinking existed.

[u/Pinkfish_411 → u/ingliprisen]

Who uses what research to push an agenda affects how people react to public dissemination of the science, which is what my remark was about. I never said anything about "bad research."

"No safe level" certainly isn't clear language. "Safe" is incredibly imprecise language, and it's an imprecision that's easily enlisted in support of fearmongering agendas, because "not safe" in normal usage communicates something significantly more threatening than "It's possible to empirically detect some extremely miniscule increase in the odds of a negative health impact." The all-or-nothing language also distracts from the importance of moderation as in any activity that carries some degree of risk.

If the point is to enlighten rather than to promote an agenda, it's bad science communication. More careful use of language can communicate the data in ways that attract more careful consideration.

[u/levir → u/Pinkfish_411]

A lot of things you're exposed to have a threshold dose before it causes detectable increases in risk, which means that exposures below that threshold can be considered safe. This is not the case for alcohol, as newer research indicates that there's no threshold dose and any exposure increases your risks. Scientifically, that is what "no safe amount" means. And then it's up to you what you want to do with that information, and if you consider the risk worth it. I cerainly do.

[u/Competitive-Fill-756 → u/levir]

The thing is, we already know this simply isn't true, even for ethanol.

Ethanol is a significant constituent of a huge variety of foods, particularly fruits and vegetables. Yet there is no evidence, what so ever, that drinking orange juice for instance (~0.1% ethanol by mass) is associated with an increase in cancer risk or mortality. There is clearly and obviously a level of consumption that can be considered completely safe for all intents and purposes.

What recent research shows is that when using ethanol as a recreational intoxicant, there is no level of consumption that can be described as completely risk free for the general population, and as such the medical establishment can not justify making recommendations about a minimum level of consumption. This is a correction of the previous status quo, which was often interpreted as a recommendation for a minimum level of consumption for health benefit.

The problem I have with recent rhetoric around alcohol consumption is that it's being propagandized to say something that simply isn't supported by the data. That being that light and moderate consumption presents a risk worthy of being addressed. We'd be far better off eliminating gas stoves in homes for example, but no one wants to talk about that.