Image by Edge2Edge Media on Unsplash.
One of the problems associated with learning about health and aging involves understanding statistics. If you want to get good information about a health condition, you have to be able to read between the lines.
The Washington Post published an article reporting on an announcement by the US Surgeon General. That’s the same Surgeon General who decided loneliness was America’s number one health problem. Not getting insurance denials. Not prevention of medical care in anti-abortion states. Not loss of doctors due to burnout and discouragement.
The same Surgeon General said we should have warning labels on alcohol because alcohol is a cancer risk.That’s been shown in numerous studies, he says.ca
First, the American Cancer Society states that only 40-42% of cancers can be prevented by modifiable factors. That means 58-60% are due to factors like heredity, age, and exposure to carcinogens like asbestos. So already over half your risk can’t be prevented.
As a society, we could choose to spend money to research those unpreventable cancers. We could spend more money on doctors and hospitals who work towards a cure. We could make it easier for those with cancer to live, by making harsh laws about insurance company denials of care, so people who are already sick won’t have money worries piled on top of health worries; they and their caretakers won’t spend hours on the phone begging for coverage.
But it’s cheaper and more upbeat to exhort people to deal with modifiable risk factors. Most cancer tests are inexpensive and insurance companies routinely delay or deny the more expensive ones, like MRIs and sonograms.
So then we come to the 40% of cancers that could be avoided. Alcohol, says the Surgeon General, is the third leading risk factor for modifiable cancers.
How much does each factor reduce cancer risk?
They cited one journal article that’s an Australian study of alcohol and cancer. Here’s what the article said, buried deeply in the results section: By age 85 years, the absolute risk of an alcohol-related cancer was 17.3% in men and 25.0% in women for those consuming >14 drinks per week, compared to 12.9% in men and 19.6% in women for those consuming 0 to <1 drink per week. This represents an absolute risk increase of 4.4% in men and 5.4% in women.
Fourteen drinks a week compared to non-drinkers: your absolute cancer risk is 4.4% in men and 5.4% in women. That’s not especially small; a lot of drugs reduce disease by 1% or less. But it’s not huge. What’s the risk of death from, say, denial of an insurance claim? Or lack of access to competent medical care?
Anyway, while the word “cancer” can be terrifying, far more people die of heart disease than cancer. Heart disease has preventable factors too.
One problem with getting too excited about cancer prevention is that most people won’t get cancer, let alone die of it. The people who have access to. cancer prevention also have access to good medical care. So lowering cancer risk is like that joke about preventing elephants. You put up a sign “No elephants.” Then you say, “See? No elephants! It must be the sign.”
People who don’t drink will get cancer. As one comment to this article pointed out, some alcoholics don’t get cancer at all and they certainly drink a lot. Your individual controllable risk depends on lots of factors.
I don’t have skin in this game. I sip an occasional drink with dinner and rarely finish a glass of wine.
But I don’t like to see resources wasted based on a report with questionable statistics.
