A glass of wine is equivalent to 3 cigarettes? Is this correct?

[WalkingZed]

In terms of the damage they do?

AIBU for not thinking or knowing this?

I don't drink every night maybe a glass of red wine 4 nights throughout the course of the week but never more than 2 glasses.

A colleague says drinking and smoking are on a par!

I genuinely didn't think this.

AIBU -and the only one who thought my glass of red was a great after a hard day!!--

[sparechange]

Damage to what?
That doesn't sound remotely true and a quick google can't find anything to back that up?

[Floggingmolly]

Total nonsense

[KoalaDownUnder]

Eh?

Umm, no.

[Stinkerbelle37]

Govt advice. This woman seems pretty smart. Certainly knows more than me so I'll take her advice ....

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/12136938/Do-as-I-do-think-about-cancer-before-you-have-a-glass-of-wine-says-chief-medical-officer.html

[Just5minswithDacre]

That new(ish) Chief Medical Officer is a Puritan on the rampage, she really is

[steff13]

So drinking alcohol raises your lifetime risk of breast cancer from 10ish% to 12ish%? So about 2%? But then it can reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke.

[justdontevenfuckingstart]

And then there's white bread or brown. Not enough red meat, too much meat and not enough fish. I am just going to do what I want to do and enjoy what life I have left! My thought would be smoking causes more damage than wine but that's my opinion and I will continue to enjoy both.

[KoalaDownUnder]

Where does the 'equivalent to 3 cigarettes' come in, though?

[Flossiesmummy]

A load of bollocks.

[Doobigetta]

She sounds like the life and soul of the party, doesn't she? Bloody hell.

[Zaurak]

It's impossible to quantify 'one glass of wine does X damage'

Alcohol is more of a cumulative thing. Up to a certain point it's not too harmful. That point probably isn't as high as we'd like to think - a drink a day does up your risk of breast cancer for example, but not vastly.

Cigarettes are bad in any amount. Any one cigarette could be the one that triggers a specific mutation that sets a cell on the way to becoming cancerous.

There is a safe amount of alcohol. There's no safe amount of cigarettes

[acasualobserver]

I think it's true that now smoking related deaths are in decline something else is more likely to kill you. You gotta go somehow.

[ForHarry]

I have heard the recent warnings on alcohol leading to increased cancer risk. The recommended upper limit for men was reduced because of this I think.

[MitzyLeFrouf]

' 'Do I want the glass of wine or do I want to raise my own risk of breast cancer?'

Dame Sally Davies seems like a hoot.

[MitzyLeFrouf]

On a Saturday night Sally I most definitely want a glass of wine thank you very much.

[TheWindInThePillows]

Zaurak that's not strictly true, there's a very strong dose-response relationship between number of cigarettes smoked/amount of harmful chemicals in them and the outcomes in terms of disease. That's how they discovered that smoking causes lung cancer- because the people who didn't smoke had the lowest rate, those that smoked a small/moderate amount had an increased risk, and those who were very heavy smokers had the highest rate.

If you smoke one cigarette a day, it's not the same risk as if you are a 40 a day smoker. It's the same for passive smoking, a whiff of a cigarette is not particularly harmful despite some of the hysteria about it, but sitting next to a 40 a day smoker for 20 years is much more harmful.

Exposure is extremely important.

[dontcallmethatyoucunt]

Well if you're heavy smoker has 20 a day, that's a bottle of wine. Do that every day and I bet you'd be in a bit of a mess.

[Zaurak]

No that's not what I meant - there is a dose dependent relationship with cigarettes but there's no safe minimum

So yes, a forty a day habit is more likely to kill you than one a week, but one is still harmful

Whereas forty units a weeks will likely do you damage but one a week has almost no effect.

Not denying the dose dependence, rather saying that cigarettes have no safe minimum level. Unlike booze

[Zaurak]

So being a light drinker isn't harmful to health whereas being a light smoker is.

Some substances have no safe minimum level (things like dioxin for example) others do. Cigarettes are in the former category, alcohol the latter

[WeDoNotTalktoPennilynLott]

Now they're saying hot drinks cause cancer. Pretty much everything seems to have some link somewhere so I'll enjoy my wine at the weekend and take my chances...

[TheWindInThePillows]

Zaurak I kind of agree with what you are saying, being a 'light smoker' isn't good for you at all, because we know light smokers often smoke those few cigarettes (if they cut down) very hard, so they manage to get as much nicotine as possible out of them (and so all the other harmful chemicals too), whereas they may not smoke say 20 very heavily or down to the stubby bit. In other words, they don't smoke the 5 the same way as they smoked the 20 and this increases their exposure.

But, it's still better to be a 1 a day smoker than a 20 a day smoker in general, one a week must be pretty rare though!

[sparechange]

I'm saying this after 2 glasses of wine...
But ffs. Live a joyful life. Don't get so fat that you are in pain. Don't drink so much that you are a pain

I've seen a 90 year old die after hating the last 10 years of her life. I'm watching another 85 year old going the same way.

Your risk of cancer has far more to do with the genes you were born with than what you fill your glass with.

Stop this obsession with trying to live to 100 and enjoy the life you have.

Chin chin