Quick Hit: Alcohol-cancer link in women
From the Associated Press: "A study of nearly 1.3 million British women offers yet more evidence that moderate alcohol consumption increases the risk of a handful of cancers."
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I just wanted to point out that having a glass of wine a night has been shown to decrease women's risk of heart disease, you know, the Number 1 killer of women.
Breast cancer foundations and research campaigns do a lot of good, but most people forget that heart disease is an even bigger threat to women's health.
I'd actually been thinking about that study all day yesterday, and ranted to my coworker a bit.
It's presented as if the danger is only to women. Were only women studied? If so, why? Wouldn't it be just as important to know about similar risks in men?
It just makes me feel like people doing the study had motives other than giving women useful information, like, say, creating the idea that us little women can't handle alcohol, our poor women bodies just can't deal with it. Or something related to drinking while pregnant being bad, and considering women always in a state of potentially pregnant, so they better not drink. If they really were genuinely good reasons for doing the study the way they did, I still worry about the way so many people will use these results.
Overall, it troubled me deeply.
Oh, and it didn't help when I read a comment on the study saying that it just goes to show that, so far as women are concerned, the risks outweigh the benefits when it comes to alcohol, and women shouldn't drink at all.
I just wrote a long rant, but I have saved you my ire. It wasn't directed at you, but wider problems.
The answers you are looking for are to be found from the source, the Million Women Study:
I hope you find much interesting data in there. I have decided to reword my general complaints and direct them... elsewhere. ;-)
Wow, thank you. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it's not the studies that are the problem, but the way the media is presenting the results.
I never would've guessed that the original study was based on learning more about the effects of HRT, with other things as almost side-studies, extra information they might be able to get while doing their main study. Everything I'd heard/read on the news made it out like they did this massive study on the effects of alcohol consumption in women.
Thanks yet again, media.
Overall, moderate consumption does have benefits, purely from a stress-relief standpoint.
It seems like everything is a carcinogen these days. It's so confusing.
Yeah basically everything in the world causes cancer at this point so really? May as well drink and reap the multitude of other heath benefits it offers.
No kidding. I'm not about to give up having a beer with my friends because of this. I'm more likely to get lung cancer because my dad smoked like a chimney, or skin cancer because I never wore sunscreen and played outside all the time as a kid. There are a lot more immediate risk factors in most people's lives than "alcohol might maybe increase your chances a little tiny bit".
I'm not saying cancer isn't a serious issue. But this study doesn't make me worry any more than I did five minutes ago.
Hooo-kay, I see this stuff all the damned time and it's time for a little stat 101.
First, when a study says there is a correlation between cancer RISK and whatever behavior, it doesn't mean cancer is CAUSED by said factor, just that the percentage chance you will get cancer by the time you are 80 and die anyway goes up some.
Second, if I say "I have doubled your risk of X cancer that doesn't mean yo suddenly have a 50-50 chance of getting it.
Remember the famous "one in eight" for women with breast cancer? First, it was wrong, but even if it weren't that does NOT mean doubling your risk means a one-in-four chance of getting the disease, as that risk is measured over a lifetime, and that risk is not constant. Five-year-olds don't get breast cancer, whereas 60-year-olds do.
Third, most cancer risk is measured in small percentages -- remember, millions and millions of people go their whole lies without getting cancer. In fact, most people never get it. Something else kills you first like a heart attack or getting into a car accident.
Cancer is very much a disease of the older set. Which makes perfect sense-- since its based on cell mutations and such mutations will only tend to happen as you get older. Cell division errors are a pain but it's the price we pay for being multi-cellular animals.
Then there's another issue here. I hear complaints all the time about how medical studies use men as the baseline and nobody wants to look at the effects of various things on women. Well, you got your wish.
Anyhoo there are plenty of reasons not to drink like a sailor every night (I find hangovers to be a bit much to deal with more than once in a while and cirrhosis of the liver sucks). Cancer is sort of low on the list.
Alcohol affects women and men differently. A woman's body has more fat and less muscle than a man's. Alcohol can be diluted into water-holding muscle tissue, but not into fat tissue. Therefore alcohol cannot be diluted as quickly in her body as in his. Also, a woman cannot metabolize alcohol as quickly as a man. Therefore, alcohol stays in her bloodstream longer.
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