Anonymous wrote:Not to mention it causes cancer. The less you drink, the better. I have wine once or twice a year and never more than two glasses.
That’s not what the data show. What was shown was there was “no safe level” shown in retrospective observational studies. You won’t really be able to establish a safe level without a prospective study with a control arm. So it’s unremarkable they weren’t able to establish a safe level.
As for the connection to cancer, they can correlate higher alcohol use with higher cancer incidence but they can’t isolate alcohol as the cause vs other lifestyle factors.
All things being equal, you can drink more than 4 glasses of wine a year without increasing your cancer risk. M
The link between cigarettes and cancer is far better established and, if not addictive, you could have several cigarettes a year without a meaningful impact on your overall health.
The concept of “no safe level” bleeding into news as entertainment and reporting on complex science without explaining study design is deleterious to society. There’s a safe level of every substance. It could be microscopic but nothing is toxic at *any* level. There’s a maximum level of uranium exposure in drinking water yet people think alcohol has no safe level.