Think twice about that drink

[MsAmerica]

This particular article has statistic in America, but still relevant.

Did Drinking Give Me Breast Cancer?
The science on the link is clear, but the alcohol industry has worked hard to downplay it.
Mother Jones
By Stephanie Mencimer

There is no known safe dosage in humans, according to the WHO. Alcohol causes at least seven types of cancer, but it kills more women from breast cancer than from any other. The International Agency for Research on Cancer estimates that for every drink consumed daily, the risk of breast cancer goes up 7 percent...

Marketing alcohol as a health product should be a tough sell. Cancer is only one of the many ways it can kill you. Drunk driving, alcohol poisoning, injuries, domestic violence, liver disease—alcohol is responsible for the deaths of nearly 90,000 Americans every year, more than double the estimated 40,000 US opioid deaths in 2015. To overcome this hurdle, the industry needed to give its PR campaign scientific backing. The strategy came straight from the tobacco playbook, which wasn’t a surprise: Sometimes the companies were one and the same. The tobacco giant Philip Morris, which bought Miller in 1970, later became Altria, which today has a big stake in Anheuser-Busch.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/04/did-drinking-give-me-breast-cancer/

And?

Did Drinking Give Me Breast Cancer?

No, it was most likely genetics.

Well under 10% of breast cancer is genetic

Well, did you actually read the whole article? That's your "and."

The huge rise in the rates of cancer in recent decades are not due to alcohol. People have been drinking alcohol for thousands of years.

And just because it's bad for you doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Lots of fun things come with risks. The world is way too safely conscious now. Not sure it's making us happier or healthier.

Why is this is in Food/Recipes?

Well, the article lost me in the first paragraph when she suggested that cancer is becuas eyou've done something wrong. Sure, some cancers are likely caused by external factors like smoking or whatever, but please don't tell me that the many many children who die of cancer do so because they "did something wrong".

I am not stupid. I'm sure that alcohol does increase risk of cancer. LIke many other things. But I'm not going to tear my hair, wear sackcloth and cry and wail that people are "giving themselves" cancer by having a drink. You have to look at this in perspective.

I just pulled some stats. Annually 20,000 deaths from cancer in the US are linked to alcohol. Interestingly, accidents account for 227,000 deaths in the US annually. So you are 11 times more likely to die from an accident than from am alcohol related cancer. More than twice the number of deaths from alchol-related cancers is car accidents. So perhaps we should all stop driving in cars? Clearly that is a massive risk?

All the women I've known who had breast cancer never drank at all. All the people I know who drink and are dead dropped down dead from a heart attack.
So what? You've got to die of something.
Everyone is well aware alcohol is the most dangerous drug out there. But it's pleasurable. People don't do things purely to prolong their lives. They go things to enjoy them.

I'm so tired of scaremongering.

Eat a UPF and you'll die young.
Drink more than one drink at Christmas and you'll die young.
Let your children out of your sight for 10 seconds and they'll be abducted, raped or murdered.

And the problem is that the momeny you look at the bloody stats, its often not true and/or the risk is so low.

Then of course, the endless articles about how women are putting their unborn babies at risk by doing everything from working to experiencing stress.

It's exhausting.

You think it's bad, or unkind, to say that cancer may well be because you've done something wrong?

You don't think that, for instance, smoking cigarettes increases your likelihood of lung cancer?

Because most people take in alcohol via their mouths?

I think it's bad and unkind to suggest that most cancers are because you've done "something wrong". And I think even when you HAVE done something wrong, people are unkind to make a song and dance about the fact that you did. Just like when you hear about someone in a car accident who dies because they screwed up, you know it' stheir own fault, but it doesn't change that you feel sorry for them that this mistake cost their life.

Also, quite frankly, I note you've ignored the rest of my post, and everyone else on this thread, who have pointed out that drinking-related cancers are relatively minor in the bigger scheme of things. Not to say we shouldn't be aware of the risks, but the risks are low and there are a lot of other things that are far riskier. Like cars.

Ah, you see, to me, your attitude is part of a broader problem: You're more interested in ensuring people's feelings aren't hurt by people being "unkind" and less interested in the truth, no matter how unhappy it is.

You know, when activists try to convince others to take action to protect the environment, they are often met with, "But meat-eating is only a small part of the problem!" or "But personal wastefulness is only a small part of the problem!" or "But plastic water bottles are only a small part of the problem!" Sure. But if you start adding up several of the small parts, it starts to improve.

Blah blah

Thanks OP for the link. I drink little but it’s information that I’ll pass to my young adult daughters for them to read if they wish and make their own conclusions/choices.