Beware the Daiquiri of Death!

Are we being scared to death?

Sure, it looks delicious, but it wants to kill you!

I hate horror movies. Why the hell would I pay to be frightened? Similarly, I resent earnest warnings about things that aren’t actually dangerous or at least nowhere near as dangerous as I’m being told.

Lots of people make a living convincing the rest of us we are dying. The first time I went to Mexico — where I’d been warned to watch my back at all times — I carefully fashioned a kind of Kung-Fu star nun-chuck contraption I could whip out to defend myself. After a few days, I realized I was more likely to be hugged to death by sweet old ladies trying to feed me than accosted by roving gangs of gringo-hating banditos. As it turned out, there was nothing to fear but the fear-mongers.

Life has offered me the same insight over and over again. None of the bears on Kodiak island tried to eat me, even though I’d spent six weeks working in a cannery and my tent, my clothes and my body all smelled like salmon. Marijuana didn’t make me a lazy hippy as far as I can tell, and I don’t think psychedelics ever quite severed my connection to reality — though I can’t prove that one. I didn’t die on my BMW k75, despite riding it through Barcelona traffic every day for seven years. Bad things happen, but far less often than we’re led to believe.

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It seems like every year around the holidays, there’s another round of shrieking about the dangers of alcohol. These periodic campaigns used to focus on heavy drinking being linked to all sorts of nastiness, which is no doubt true. But now we’re hearing that NO AMOUNT OF ALCOHOL IS SAFE! Is the medical media cashing in on post-holiday shame bubbles ready to pop in their readership? Are the journalists trying to atone for their own over-indulgence by scaring the rest of us? Whatever their motivations, their bloviations are tiresome and suspect.

It seems like every year around now, there’s another round of shrieking about the dangers of alcohol.

Here’s the obligatory disclaimer: I’m not saying alcohol is good for you. I am saying that a lot of the hang-wringing and freak-out over light, occasional drinking is unwarranted, based on shoddy scientific evidence, and doesn’t take into account the health damage done by causing unnecessary stress in millions of people who don’t have the time to unpack these statements as I will now.

First, let’s take a step back and look at the issue from a common-sense perspective. Based on last year’s United Nations estimate, current life expectancy at birth is over 84 years in a handful of countries including Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy (the dark green countries on the map). Obviously, a lot goes into overall life expectancy (diet, access to medical care, infant mortality, etc.), but if even a little alcohol is a major killer, what are we to make of the superior longevity of people for whom wine is an integral part of most meals?

Then look at the slippery wording of the warnings. This recent story in the New York Times provides plentiful examples of such sly phrasing. The headline asks the question: “How Much Alcohol Does It Take to Raise Your Cancer Risk?” and the sub-head appears to answer it: “The surgeon general cautioned the public on Friday that even light or moderate drinking is harmful.”

Got that? “Even light or moderate drinking is harmful.” Pretty unambiguous.

Now let’s go to the lead: “The surgeon general of the U.S. Public Health Service warned on Friday that even light or moderate alcohol consumption can increase a person’s risk of cancer.” Hold on. “Can increase a person’s risk of cancer”?

“Is harmful” is one thing. It’s definite. It’s a fact. It’s harmful, period. But “can increase risk” is something else. Falling off a cliff is harmful. Being a rock climber can increase the risk of falling off a cliff, but is not necessarily harmful at all, and if you rope in, the increase of risk is negligible.

Also, you should never trust “increase risk” phrasing. If the risk of being hit by lightning is one in a million and wearing my tin-foil hat DOUBLES MY RISK OF BEING STRUCK, my risk is still only one in 500,000. I’ll wear the hat, thanks.

A bit further on, we’re told that, “even what we think of as ‘light’ or ‘moderate’ drinking — up to one drink per day — increases the risk of some cancers, like those of the mouth, pharynx and breast.” To drive the point home, one Dr. Ernest Hawk swoops down to slam the door on fear-free drinking of any sort: “There is no safe level of alcohol when it comes to cancer risk,” says Dr. Hawk.

Forget about it. Zero tolerance. “No safe level.”

Far be it from me to doubt Dr. Hawk, but it turns out that there’s some pretty slippery research behind these statements.

The Times article points to “a 2013 study in the Annals of Oncology that specifically looked at the association between ‘light drinking’ and cancer [that] found that compared to people who did not drink, those who drank up to one alcoholic beverage a day had a 30 percent higher chance of developing esophageal cancer, a 17 percent higher chance of developing cancer of the oral cavity and pharynx and a 5 percent higher chance of developing breast cancer.”

A 30 percent higher risk of esophageal cancer sounds pretty bad, so I took a look at that study. Here’s what it actually has to say about esophageal cancer risk:

Estimates for esophageal SCC [squamous cell carcinoma] were heterogeneous by the geographical region; the risk for Asia was the highest and the only statistically significant risk. This can be explained by the fact that Asian populations have a higher prevalence of polymorphisms of the genes encoding enzymes for ethanol metabolism than other populations.

Translation: Outside of Asia, the researchers found no statistically significant increase in esophageal cancer related to light drinking. They think this is due to genetic disparities between Asians and non-Asians.

Non-Asian readers of The New York Times who happen to be light drinkers were told they had a “30 percent higher chance of developing esophageal cancer,” when in fact, the study cited found no increased risk at all for them.

That’s some straight-up bullshit right there.

Furthermore, the study found no significant association between light drinking and cancer of the liver, laryngeal cancer, or colorectal cancer, and only slight increases in oropharyngeal and breast cancer deaths associated with light drinking: “We estimated that ∼5000 deaths from oropharyngeal cancer, 24000 from esophageal SCC and 5000 from breast cancer were attributable to light drinking in 2004 worldwide. No association was found for colorectum, liver and larynx tumors.”

As we’ve established, outside of Asian populations, the study found no statistically significant increased risk of esophageal cancer. Presumably, the slight increases found in breast and oropharyngeal cancer risk are global, and the authors say they amount to around 10,000 premature deaths combined, annually.

Ten thousand deaths is a lot, especially if you or a loved one happen to be among them. But what are the actual odds of that being the case? Roughly 62 million people die every year. If my math is correct, that means that 0.000161% of those deaths would have resulted from breast or oral cancer caused by the light use of alcohol. That isn’t nothing, but it’s pretty damned close to nothing.

Just to add a bit of context, the World Health Organization estimates that around seven million deaths per year are due to air pollution. That would be around 11%, as opposed to 0.000161%. Maybe we’re being distracted from real dangers with manufactured alarm?

Nothing in this life is risk-free, but I’m pretty confident that significantly more than 0.000161% of people who die each year were scared to death by merchants of fear.