How Much Alcohol Does It Take To Increase Cancer Risk?

10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

Alcohol is, of course, unhealthy. Not even the famous “small glass of red” is recommended:

Can We Drink To Good Health?

Alcohol also increases all-cause mortality at any dose (even “low-risk drinking”):

Alcohol Consumption Patterns and Mortality Among Older Adults

…and the World Health Organization has declared that the only safe amount of alcohol is zero:

WHO: No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health

But what of alcohol and cancer? According to the American Association of Cancer Research’s latest report, more than half of Americans do not know that alcohol increases the risk of cancer:

Source: AACR Cancer Progress Report

Why/how does alcohol increase the risk of cancer?

There’s an obvious aspect and a less obvious but very important aspect:

  • The obvious: alcohol damages almost every system in the body, and so it’s little surprise if that includes systems whose job it is to keep us safe from cancer.
  • The less obvious: alcohol is largely metabolized by certain enzymes that have an impact on DNA repair, such as alcohol dehydrogenases and aldehyde dehydrogenases, amongst others, and noteworthily, acetaldehyde (the main metabolite of alcohol) is itself genotoxic.

Read more: Alcohol & Cancer

This is important, because it means alcohol also increases the risk of cancers other than the obvious head/neck, laryngeal, esophageal, liver, and colorectal cancers.

However, those cancers are of course the most well-represented of alcohol-related cancers, along with breast cancer (this has to do with alcohol’s effect on estrogen metabolism).

If you’re curious about the numbers, and the changes in risk if one reduces/quits/reprises drinking:

❝The increased alcohol-related cancer incidence was associated with dose; those who changed from nondrinking to mild (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 1.03; 95% CI, 1.00-1.06), moderate (aHR, 1.10; 95% CI, 1.02-1.18), or heavy (aHR, 1.34; 95% CI, 1.23-1.45) drinking levels had an associated higher risk than those who did not drink.

Those with mild drinking levels who quit drinking had a lower risk of alcohol-related cancer (aHR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.92-0.99) than those who sustained their drinking levels.

Those with moderate (aHR, 1.07; 95% CI, 1.03-1.12) or heavy (aHR, 1.07; 95% CI, 1.02-1.12) drinking levels who quit drinking had a higher all cancer incidence than those who sustained their levels, but when quitting was sustained, this increase in risk disappeared.

Results of this study showed that increased alcohol consumption was associated with higher risks for alcohol-related and all cancers, whereas sustained quitting and reduced drinking were associated with lower risks of alcohol-related and all cancers.

Alcohol cessation and reduction should be reinforced for the prevention of cancer.❞

Source: Association Between Changes in Alcohol Consumption and Cancer Risk

Worried it’s too late?

If you’re reading this (and thus, evidently, still alive), it isn’t. It’s never too late (nor too early) to reduce, or ideally stop, drinking. Even if you already have cancer, drinking more alcohol will only exacerbate things, and abstaining from alcohol will improve your chances of recovery.

For a reassuring timeline of recovery from alcohol-related damage, see:

What Happens To Your Body When You Stop Drinking Alcohol

Want to stop, but have tried before and find it daunting?

There are a few ways to make it a lot easier:

Rethinking Drinking: How To Reduce Or Quit Alcohol

Take care!

Don’t Forget…

Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

Recommended

  • Thinking of using an activity tracker to achieve your exercise goals? Here’s where it can help – and where it probably won’t
  • Carbonated Water: For Weight Loss, Satiety, Or Just Gas?
    Sparkling water’s fizz may fight hunger, but its weight loss benefits are overhyped and understudied—be skeptical of carbonated claims.

Learn to Age Gracefully

Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Why are my muscles sore after exercise? Hint: it’s nothing to do with lactic acid

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    As many of us hit the gym or go for a run to recover from the silly season, you might notice a bit of extra muscle soreness.

    This is especially true if it has been a while between workouts.

    A common misunderstanding is that such soreness is due to lactic acid build-up in the muscles.

    Research, however, shows lactic acid has nothing to do with it. The truth is far more interesting, but also a bit more complex.

    It’s not lactic acid

    We’ve known for decades that lactic acid has nothing to do with muscle soreness after exercise.

    In fact, as one of us (Robert Andrew Robergs) has long argued, cells produce lactate, not lactic acid. This process actually opposes not causes the build-up of acid in the muscles and bloodstream.

    Unfortunately, historical inertia means people still use the term “lactic acid” in relation to exercise.

    Lactate doesn’t cause major problems for the muscles you use when you exercise. You’d probably be worse off without it due to other benefits to your working muscles.

    Lactate isn’t the reason you’re sore a few days after upping your weights or exercising after a long break.

    So, if it’s not lactic acid and it’s not lactate, what is causing all that muscle soreness?

    Muscle pain during and after exercise

    When you exercise, a lot of chemical reactions occur in your muscle cells. All these chemical reactions accumulate products and by-products which cause water to enter into the cells.

    That causes the pressure inside and between muscle cells to increase.

    This pressure, combined with the movement of molecules from the muscle cells can stimulate nerve endings and cause discomfort during exercise.

    The pain and discomfort you sometimes feel hours to days after an unfamiliar type or amount of exercise has a different list of causes.

    If you exercise beyond your usual level or routine, you can cause microscopic damage to your muscles and their connections to tendons.

    Such damage causes the release of ions and other molecules from the muscles, causing localised swelling and stimulation of nerve endings.

    This is sometimes known as “delayed onset muscle soreness” or DOMS.

    While the damage occurs during the exercise, the resulting response to the injury builds over the next one to two days (longer if the damage is severe). This can sometimes cause pain and difficulty with normal movement.

    The upshot

    Research is clear; the discomfort from delayed onset muscle soreness has nothing to do with lactate or lactic acid.

    The good news, though, is that your muscles adapt rapidly to the activity that would initially cause delayed onset muscle soreness.

    So, assuming you don’t wait too long (more than roughly two weeks) before being active again, the next time you do the same activity there will be much less damage and discomfort.

    If you have an exercise goal (such as doing a particular hike or completing a half-marathon), ensure it is realistic and that you can work up to it by training over several months.

    Such training will gradually build the muscle adaptations necessary to prevent delayed onset muscle soreness. And being less wrecked by exercise makes it more enjoyable and more easy to stick to a routine or habit.

    Finally, remove “lactic acid” from your exercise vocabulary. Its supposed role in muscle soreness is a myth that’s hung around far too long already.The Conversation

    Robert Andrew Robergs, Associate Professor – Exercise Physiology, Queensland University of Technology and Samuel L. Torrens, PhD Candidate, Queensland University of Technology

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    Share This Post

  • Gut-Healthy Labneh Orecchiette

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Labneh (a sort of yogurt-cheese made from strained yogurt) is a great probiotic, and there’s plenty of resistant starch in this dish too, from how we cook, cool, and reheat the pasta. Add to this the lycopene from the tomatoes, the ergothioneine from the mushrooms, and the healthful properties of the garlic, black pepper, and red chili, and we have a very healthy dish!

    You will need

    • 10 oz labneh (if you can’t buy it locally, you can make your own by straining Greek yogurt through a muslin cloth, suspended over a bowl to catch the water that drips out, overnight—and yes, plant-based is also fine if you are vegan, and the gut benefits are similar because unlike vegan cheese, vegan yogurt is still fermented)
    • 6 oz wholegrain orecchiette (or other pasta, but this shape works well for this sauce)
    • ¼ bulb garlic, grated
    • Juice of ½ lemon
    • Large handful chopped parsley
    • Large handful chopped dill
    • 9 oz cherry tomatoes, halved
    • 9 oz mushrooms (your choice what kind), sliced (unless you went for shiitake or similar, which don’t need it due to already being very thin)
    • 2 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
    • 1 tsp red chili flakes
    • ¼ tsp MSG or ½ tsp low-sodium salt
    • Extra virgin olive oil

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Cook the pasta as you normally would. Drain, and rinse with cold water. Set aside.

    2) Combine the labneh with the garlic, black pepper, dill, parsley, and lemon juice, in a large bowl. Set aside.

    3) Heat a little olive oil in a skillet; add the chili flakes, followed by the mushrooms. Cook until soft and browned, then add the tomatoes and fry for a further 1 minute—we want the tomatoes to be blistered, but not broken down. Stir in the MSG/salt, and take off the heat.

    4) Refresh the pasta by passing a kettle of boiling water through it in a colander, then add the hot pasta to the bowl of labneh sauce, stirring to coat thoroughly.

    5) Serve, spooning the mushrooms and tomatoes over the labneh pasta.

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    Take care!

    Share This Post

  • How To Keep On Keeping On?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    How To Keep On Keeping On… Long Term!

    For many when it comes to health-related goals and practices, it’s easy to find ourselves in a bit of a motivational dip around this time of year. The enthusiasm of new year’s resolutions has been and gone, and there’s not yet much of a drive to “get a beach body” or “be summer-ready”.

    A word to the wise on those before moving on, though:

    • How to get a beach body: take your body to a beach. Voilà. Beach body.
      • Remember: the beach is there for your pleasure and entertainment, not the other way around!
    • How to be summer-ready: the real question is, will summer be ready for you?

    But what is this, demotivational rhetoric to discourage you from getting fit and healthy?

    Not at all, but rather, to be sure that you’re pursuing your own goals and not just what you feel might be expected of you.

    All that in mind, let’s get to the tips…

    Focus on adding health

    It can be tempting (and even, good) to cut down on unhealthy things. But when it comes to motivation, it’s harder to stay motivated for deprivation, than it is for some healthy addition to life.

    So for example, this philosophy would advocate for:

    • Instead of counting calories, count steps! Or even…
    • Instead of counting calories, count colors! Eat the rainbow and all that. No, skittles do not count, but eating a variety of naturally different-colored foods will tend to result in adding different nutrients to your diet.
    • Instead of cutting out sugar, add fruit! How many per day will you go for? If you don’t eat much fruit as it is, consider making it a goal to have even just one piece of fruit a day, then build up from there. Find fruit you like! If you pick the fruit you want instead of the fruit you think you “should” have, it’s basically a dessert snack.

    We’ve recommended it before, and we’ll recommend it again, but if you’re interested in “adding health”, you should definitely check out:

    Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen (checklist, plus app if you want it)

    More details: it’s a checklist of 12 things you should try to include in your diet, with a free streak-tracking app, if you want it, all based on the same scientific research as the best-selling book “How Not To Die”.

    “Minimum effort!”

    Did you see the movie “Deadpool”? The protagonist has a catch-phrase as he goes into battle, saying to himself “Maximum effort!”.

    And, that’s all very well and good if your superpower is immediate recovery from pretty much anything, but for the rest of us, sometimes it’s good to hold ourselves to “minimum effort!”.

    Sometimes, something worth doing is worth doing just a little a bit. It’s always better than nothing! Even if feels like you gained nothing from it, it’s the foundation of a habit, and the habit will grow and add up. Sometimes it may even take you by surprise…

    Don’t feel like doing 20 bodyweight squats? Do literally just one. Make a deal with yourself: do just one, then you can stop if you like. Then after you’ve done one, you might think to yourself “huh, that wasn’t so bad”, and you try out a few more. Maybe after 5 you can feel your blood pumping a bit and you think “you know what, that’s enough for now”, and great, you did 5x as much exercise as you planned! Wonder what you’ll do tomorrow!

    (personal note from your writer here: I’ve managed to “just extend this exercise a little bit more than last time” my way into hour-long exercise sessions before now; I started with “just 10 squats” or “just one sun salutation” etc, to get myself out of a no-exercise period that I’d slipped into, and it’s amazing how quickly adding just a little bit to the previous day’s “minimum effort!” adds up to a very respectable daily exercise session)

    Wondering what a good, easy, respectable short term goal could be?

    Check Out, For Example: The Seven-Minute Workout

    (You might have heard of this one before; it’s an incredibly efficient well-optimized short complete workout that requires no special equipment, just a bit of floorspace and a wall—the above app allows for customizations of it per your preferences, but the basic routine is an excellent starting point for most people)

    Commit to yourself (and do any self-negotiation up-front)

    Really commit, though. No “or I will look silly because I told people I’d do it”, no “or I will donate x amount to charity” etc, just “I will do it and that’s that”. If you find yourself second-guessing yourself or renegotiating with yourself, just shut that down immediately and refuse to consider it.

    Note: you should have break-clauses in this contract with yourself, though. For example, “unless I am ill or injured” is a sensible rule to have in advance for most exercise regimes that weren’t undertaken with your illness or injury in mind.

    Make a “To-Don’t” list

    Much like how addicts are often advised to not try to quit more than one thing at once, we must also be mindful of not taking on too much at once. It can be very tempting to think:

    “I will turn my life around, now! I’ll quit alcohol and animal products and sugar and refined grains, and I’ll go for a run each morning, and I’ll do this and that and there, I’ve got it, here is the blueprint for my healthy perfect life from this day forth!”

    And, it’s great to have any and all of that as your end goal if you want, but please, pick one or two things at most to start with, focus on those, and when those have become second nature to you and just a normal part of your life, then choose the next thing to work on.

    (You can plan out the whole thing in advance if you want! i.e., I’ll do this, then this, then this, but just… make sure that you’ve really got each one down to a matter of comfort and ease before you take up the next one)

    In summary:

    • Focus on adding health, whatever that looks like to you
    • Figure out what “minimum effort!” is for you, and let that be your baseline
    • Commit to yourself (and do any self-negotiation up-front, not later)
    • Decide what you’re not going to do yet, and stick to that, too.

    Share This Post

Related Posts

  • Thinking of using an activity tracker to achieve your exercise goals? Here’s where it can help – and where it probably won’t
  • One in twenty people has no sense of smell – here’s how they might get it back

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    During the pandemic, a lost sense of smell was quickly identified as one of the key symptoms of COVID. Nearly four years later, one in five people in the UK is living with a decreased or distorted sense of smell, and one in twenty have anosmia – the total loss of the ability to perceive any odours at all. Smell training is one of the few treatment options for recovering a lost sense of smell – but can we make it more effective?

    Smell training is a therapy that is recommended by experts for recovering a lost sense of smell. It is a simple process that involves sniffing a set of different odours – usually essential oils, or herbs and spices – every day.

    The olfactory system has a unique ability to regenerate sensory neurons (nerve cells). So, just like physiotherapy where exercise helps to restore movement and function following an injury, repeated exposure to odours helps to recover the sense of smell following an infection, or other cause of smell loss (for example, traumatic head injury).

    Several studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of smell training under laboratory conditions. But recent findings have suggested that the real-world results might be disappointing.

    One reason for this is that smell training is a long-term therapy. It can take months before patients detect anything, and some people may not get any benefit at all.

    In one study, researchers found that after three months of smell training, participation dropped to 88%, and further declined to 56% after six months. The reason given was that these people did not feel as though they noticed any improvement in their ability to smell.

    Cross-modal associations

    To remedy this, researchers are now investigating how smell training can be improved. One interesting idea is that information from our other senses, or “cross-modal associations”, can be applied to smell training to promote odour perception and improve the results.

    Cross-modal associations are described as the tendency for sensory cues from different sensory systems to be matched. For example, brightness tends to be associated with loudness. Pitch is related to size. Colours are linked to temperature, and softness is matched with round shapes, while spiky shapes feel more rough. In previous studies, these associations have been shown to have a considerable influence on how sensory information is processed. Especially when it comes to olfaction.

    Recent research has shown that the sense of smell is influenced by a combination of different sensory inputs – not just odours. Sensory cues such as colour, shape, and pitch are believed to play a role in the ability to correctly identify and name odours, and can influence perceptions of odour pleasantness and intensity.

    In one study, participants were asked to complete a test that measured their ability to discriminate between different odours while they were presented with the colour red or yellow, an outline drawing of a strawberry or a lemon, or a combination of these colours and shapes. The results suggested that corresponding odour and colour associations (for example, the colour red and strawberry) were linked to increased olfactory performance compared with odours and colours that were not associated (for example, the colour yellow and strawberry).

    Strawberries
    People who associated strawberries with the colour red performed better on smell tests. GCapture/Shutterstock

    While projects focusing on harnessing these cross-modal associations to improve treatments for smell loss are underway, research has already started to deliver some promising results.

    In a recent study that aimed to investigate whether the effects of smell training could be improved with the addition of cross-modal associations, participants watched a guidance video containing sounds that matched the odours that they were training with. The results suggest that cross-modal interactions plus smell training improved olfactory function compared to smell training alone.

    The results reported in recent studies have been promising and offer new insights into the field of olfactory science. It is hoped that this will soon lead to the development of more effective treatment options for smell recovery.

    In the meantime, smell training is one of the best things you can do for a lost sense of smell, so patients are encouraged to stick with it so that they give themselves the best chance at recovery.

    Emily Spencer, PhD Candidate, Olfaction, Edinburgh Napier University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    The Conversation

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Stay off My Operating Table – by Dr. Philip Ovadia

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    With heart disease as the #1 killer worldwide, and 88% of adults being metabolically unhealthy (leading cause of heart disease), this is serious!

    Rather than taking a “quick fix” advise-and-go approach, Dr. Ovadia puts the knowledge and tools in our hands to do better in the long term.

    As a heart surgeon himself, his motto here is:

    ❝What foods to put on your table so you don’t end up on mine❞

    There’s a lot more to this book than the simple “eat the Mediterranean diet”:

    • While the Mediterranean diet is generally considered the top choice for heart health, he also advises on how to eat healthily on all manner of diets… Carnivore, Keto, Paleo, Atkins, Gluten-Free, Vegan, you-name-it.
    • A lot of the book is given to clearing up common misconceptions, things that sounded plausible but are just plain dangerous. This information alone is worth the price of the book, we think.
    • There’s also a section given over to explaining the markers of metabolic health, so you can monitor yourself effectively
    • Rather than one-size-fits-all, he also talks about common health conditions and medications that may change what you need to be doing
    • He also offers advice about navigating the health system to get what you need—including dealing with unhelpful doctors!

    Bottom line: A very comprehensive (yet readable!) manual of heart health.

    Get your copy of Stay Off My Operating Table from Amazon today!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

  • Dandelion: Time For Evidence On Its Benefits?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    In recent decades often considered a weed, now enjoying a resurgence in popularity due its benefits for pollinators, this plant has longer-ago been enjoyed as salad (leaves) or as a drink (roots), and is typically considered to have diuretic and digestion-improving properties. So… Does it?

    Diuretic

    Probably! Because of the ubiquity of anecdotal evidence, this hasn’t been well-studied, but here’s a small (n=17) study that found that it significantly increased urination:

    The diuretic effect in human subjects of an extract of Taraxacum officinale folium over a single day

    You may be thinking, “you usually do better than an n=17 study” and yes we do, but there’s an amazing paucity of human research when it comes to dandelions, as you’ll see:

    Digestion-improving

    There’s a lot of fiber in dandelion greens and roots both, and eating unprocessed or minimally-processed plants is (with obvious exceptions, such as plants that are poisonous) invariably going to improve digestion just by virtue of the fiber content alone.

    As for dandelions, the roots are rich in inulin, a great prebiotic fiber that indeed definitely helps:

    Effect of inulin in the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (Review)

    When it comes to studies that are specifically about dandelions, however, we are down to animal studies, such as:

    The effect of Taraxacum officinale on gastric emptying and smooth muscle motility in rodents

    Note that this is not about the fiber; this is about the plant extract (so, no fiber), and how it gets the intestinal muscles to do their thing with more enthusiasm. Of course you, dear reader, are probably not a rodent, we can’t say for sure that this will have this effect in humans. However, generally speaking, what works for mammals works for mammals, so it probably indeed helps.

    For liver health

    More about rats and not humans, but again, it’s promising. Dandelion extract appears to protect the liver, reducing the damage in the event of induced liver failure:

    Protective Effects of Taraxacum officinale L. (Dandelion) Root Extract in Experimental Acute on Chronic Liver Failure

    In other words: the researchers poisoned the rats, and those who took dandelion extract suffered less liver damage than those who didn’t.

    …and more?

    It may help improve blood triglycerides and reduce ischemic stroke risk, but most of this research is still in non-human animals:

    New Perspectives on the Effect of Dandelion, Its Food Products and Other Preparations on the Cardiovascular System and Its Diseases

    And while we’re on the topic of blood, it likely has blood-sugar-lowering effects too; once again (you guessed it), mostly non-human animal studies, though, with some in vitro studies:

    The Physiological Effects of Dandelion (Taraxacum Officinale) in Type 2 Diabetes

    Want to try some?

    We don’t sell it, but if you have a garden, that’s a great place to grow this very easy-to-grow plant without having to worry about pesticides etc.

    Alternatively, if you’d like to buy it in supplement form, here’s an example product on Amazon 😎

    Enjoy!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails: