ALCOHOL AND CANCER - AGAIN!
ALCOHOL AND CANCER – AGAIN!
Barely a day
goes by without some new ‘threat’ to our health being announced by
epidemiologists or other health campaigners. For these people, the meaning of
life appears to be the elimination of anything enjoyable in order to achieve
maximum longevity. Key to this is the elimination of ‘risk-factors’ from our
diet and our lifestyles. The key technique used to frighten us all into
abstinence is to concentrate on cancer risks. Here an old trick is used: take a
very small baseline risk and then measure the increase to that risk that arises
if you engage in ‘heavy’ drinking. The effect of this is to give prominence and
publicity to very large percentage increases in very small baseline risks.
The Alcohol Health Alliance has taken to Twitter to publicise its message that alcohol = cancer = death. The Twitter headline reads: “Alcohol is linked with at least 7 types of cancer” and then it lists them on a handy info-graphic of the human body as: mouth and upper throat; larynx; oesophagus; breast; liver and bowel cancers.
Of course, a ‘link’ is not the same thing as a ‘cause’ but they’d like you to think it is. This scare-mongering is entirely consistent with the revision of the low risk drinking guidelines on the basis there is “no safe level of consumption in respect of the epidemiological risk of developing cancers”, and “the cancer risks of drinking is a game-changer.” It is of course accepted that excessive consumption of alcohol is causally related to a small number of cancers, but the risk is dose-related.
So, taking oral cancers as an example, what is the overall risk caused by drinking alcohol? According to Cancer Research UK there are approximately some 7,300 oral cancers diagnosed in the UK annually. Of these tobacco smoking was identified as the cause in 65% of cases. Alcohol consumption accounted for 30% of these – some 2,190 cases. 30 million adults in the UK drink at least once a week. Of those 30 million, 2,190 of them develop an alcohol-related oral cancer; that’s 0.007% of regular drinkers. And remember, these figures include very heavy drinkers as well as moderate and light drinkers – so don’t be panicked into abstention just yet.
Every such death is a tragedy, but the actuarial risk is minute. The proposition that anything that raises the epidemiological risk of a cancer “isn’t safe” is therefore somewhat problematic. In everyday life people make trade-offs. They don’t ask “is this product or behaviour safe?” they ask “is it safe enough?” We do this all the time and not just in relation to food and drink. We don’t ask is driving a motor vehicle safe; we ask is it safe enough. In other words, do the benefits of driving justify me in taking the risks? When we are told that tobacco smoking results in the premature death of half of all smokers that may well deter people from starting or persuade existing smokers to quit. But if you were told that 0.021% of regular drinkers die from an oral cancer, would that put you off? It is this kind of epidemiological paranoia that leads health cranks to call for abstinence and lowering of the lower risk drinking guidelines is but a staging post on that journey.
But what is missing from the misleading messaging of the AHA is any reference to the beneficial effects of moderate alcohol consumption. The life-prolonging effects of moderate alcohol consumption are on a firm scientific footing. Despite the science-denial of the Alcohol Health alliance and their cronies, it is the case that from Professor Sir Richard Doll (the epidemiologist who discovered the link between tobacco smoking and cancer) over 30 years ago, and onwards there have been dozens of studies that have vindicated the famous j-curve that illustrates the benefits of moderate drinking in terms of greater longevity for moderate drinkers as compared to never drinkers. So, if science indicates that alcohol conveys significant life advantages, why does the Alcohol Health Alliance act as though alcohol were evil.
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