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"sbillings":1k791148 wrote: Don't worry Lars, looks like you slightly increase one risk by drinking, but reduce other risks to the extent that you have a longer life expectancy than an abstainer[/url:1k791148].[/quote:1k791148]


My point is that with the alleged amount that the Irish are drinking "over healthy amounts" surely we'd actually see a much larger amount than 900 new cases of cancer a year? I mean considering that we actually drink soooooo much more than the safe levels, surely the cancer levels would be off the scale? It appears that it's minimal risk they are talking about realistically.

Yep, the devil is in the detail EoinMag and as usual, in the details they leave out.

I would think it's something like this. If you define a safe level as one which results in a 0% increase in cancer risk, then an increased chance of cancer from, say 1.0% to 1.00001% can be classified as unsafe consumption.

I notice that they do not tell you how much of an increase we are talking about; which is quite telling. In these circumstances they usually quote a percentage increase in your chances of getting whatever they are talking about.

You usually get something like "Increases your chances of contracting XXXX by 30%!" These figures are actually designed to make a small number seem large, by giving you a percentage increase over an unknown base chance. If instead they said something like "Increases your chances of contracting XXXX from 0.20% to 0.26%" people would be more likely to go "so what?", but it's the same increase.

In this case they don't even give us the percentage increase figure, so I smell an even more fragrant rat than normal.

Naturally, by focusing only on the increased individual risk factors to alcohol consumption and ignoring any countervailing decrease to other risk factors, they can make alcohol seem all bad.

They just have to ignore the longer life expectancy of consumers over abstainers. And they claim they care about helth.

I mean how many of the 900 cases are attributable directly to alcohol? How many of those people also smoke and eat unhealthily? How many of them excercise?

My uncle died of Hodgkins lymphoma, his thing was running marathons, I think he ran in the order of 20 marathons when I knew him, he ate healthily, he drank minimally when he was in training, so no more than 2 pints in a week....my point...you can never be sure, if ever there was a candidate to live a long life it was him...but he died just over 45......

"EoinMag":2hkex36x wrote: I mean how many of the 900 cases are attributable directly to alcohol? How many of those people also smoke and eat unhealthily? How many of them excercise?

My uncle died of Hodgkins lymphoma, his thing was running marathons, I think he ran in the order of 20 marathons when I knew him, he ate healthily, he drank minimally when he was in training, so no more than 2 pints in a week....my point...you can never be sure, if ever there was a candidate to live a long life it was him...but he died just over 45......[/quote:2hkex36x]

Sorry for your loss but if we were to use the logic being displayed by the cancer society this would mean that marathons caused your uncle's death!

"dereko1969":156wjt7p wrote:

"EoinMag":156wjt7p wrote: I mean how many of the 900 cases are attributable directly to alcohol? How many of those people also smoke and eat unhealthily? How many of them excercise?

My uncle died of Hodgkins lymphoma, his thing was running marathons, I think he ran in the order of 20 marathons when I knew him, he ate healthily, he drank minimally when he was in training, so no more than 2 pints in a week....my point...you can never be sure, if ever there was a candidate to live a long life it was him...but he died just over 45......[/quote:156wjt7p]

Sorry for your loss but if we were to use the logic being displayed by the cancer society this would mean that marathons caused your uncle's death![/quote:156wjt7p]


Yep, he's dead a few years now, realistically I think that running may have been the death of him. On the ultra runner forums they all acknowledge that they do not expect to get old. We don't hear warnings about the dangers of over-excercising though do we?

I would not be at all surprised if the cancers mentioned where ones where alcohol is considered a co-factor. Like throat cancer, for example. If they don't mind being a bit disingenuous, they could put all throat cancer into the smoking related deaths category when talking about smoking and then plop them into the alcohol related deaths column when talking about alcohol.

It's like simply quoting the rates of liver disease when talking about alcohol, as if all liver damage is down to drink, ignoring other causes like some illegal and prescription drugs, diseases like Hepatitis, etc/