Warning labels work….
I don’t think that is what was what the Dr. said. Rather the Dr. (who specializes in advanced heart failure) recommends “that patients with heart failure stop drinking altogether.” That is far from “a blanket statement that everyone should quit drinking.”
And yes, some people choose to accept more risk than others, but those who have already suffered from heart failure are at higher risk than those who haven’t. Likewise for those who have other conditions and even those who are susceptible to certain conditions. If anyone is looking minimize additional risk, then quitting drinking is a sound advice.
As for your comparison to choosing not to drive, it makes little sense to me. Most have very good reason to drive. It is close to a necessity, and giving it up with be a huge cost/burden. Not drinking costs very little in comparison. Plus, there are all sorts of mechanisms and laws in place to try to lessen the risk of driving. Plus, only 40,000 of people die per year in the US via auto accidents (not a million) and about a quarter of those were due to drunk drivers.
Perhaps a more apt analogy would advising people to avoid drunk driving/drivers.
3 Likes
I agree with you, there are things that are ‘bad’ for you, like fried foods,sausages, cured meats, cakes and cookies, that on the other hand are fun/comfort foods. One of the biggest misnomers out there is that ‘food is fuel’, that totally mis states what many people’s relationship with food is. Having these occassionally might technically increase your risk of cancer or heart disease, but it is likely so small that it might be worth it for the fun factor.
The problem with the term moderation is that it is not well defined.Someone can say “I am a moderate drinker” and have several drinks a day regularly. Someone will say “red meat is fine in moderation” and they think having it 4 or 5 meals a week is moderation. It is why I think that people need to look at the data (as confusing as it is), to understand the risks and decide what that means. With drinking, the risk of having 1 drink a day is elevated, but it isn’t quite the hype I see out there either (is jumps the cancer rate from like 11.8% to around 14%). I got a little irritated when I read “there is no safe level of alcohol consumption”, because that makes it sound like if you drink any level of alcohol you will get cancer. if you have a couple of drinks a week, the increased risk of cancer per what little data is out there is very, very tiny. It isn’t zero, but then again, a lot of things we take into our body have risks associated with them. There are doctors saying “don’t drink at all” and they use things like this to justify it, rather then telling patients what the risks are and encouraging them to minimize it.
Not sure the labels will do much, there are warning labels on cigarettes, yet people still smoke, they have warning labels on products like cleaners or products made out of certain substances that are carcinogenic,yet people use them.
6 Likes
The problem is context. Heavy drinking of alcohol can foul up the heart, but it also fouls up the liver and kidneys, and as we have seen can cause cancer. Someone with heart failure shouldn’t be drinking, among other things the drugs they take for it likely interact with alcohol.
Alcohol is a toxin, but so are many of the things we eat. Tomatoes are from the nightshade family and if you eat too much of it, it can be toxic. If you eat a grilled hamburger or a steak, there are cancer causing compounds formed from the grilling. Potatoes can have toxins in them. When you eat non organic produce, it has been treated with pesticides and with some crops, herbicides, that are carcinogenic, if you eat enough of it. GMO grains are grown bathed in Glysophate (the key ingredient in Round up), and it is absorbed in the plant and is in the grain we eat, yet the FDA says it is safe, and mainstream doctors are not telling patients not to eat it, because toxins are present.
It isn’t that I think it is wrong to let people know there can be risks associated with drinking alcohol, especially doing so regularly, but it is also important to put it into context, the relative risk, rather than saying "it is toxic and there is no safe level of drinking’, which to me is irresponsible , in part because that implies if you have even a glass of wine once in a while you are likely to get cancer or heart disease or whatever and that is not true, the risk is so darn small it is practically zero.
2 Likes
The key here is context. Someone with severe heart disease probably shouldn’t be drinking, because of the strain it puts on the body metabolizing it at the very least. People who have a high risk of certain types of cancer, like breast or colon cancer, because of genetics likely should be really careful about drinking, since they already have a high base risk. There are other risks with drinking, alcohol interferes with a number of drugs effectiveness, or they can interact and cause a bad reaction.
I don’t think the doctor in the article was telling people not to drink (though there are plenty of doctors who are saying that, who say any alcohol is bad for you, poison, etc, which quite frankly is not backed by science or data, that smacks of a personal crusade of some kind), she was talking about people with advanced heart disease, which in context makes perfect sense. Pointing out that heavy drinking can damage the heart is also not a bad thing. There are risks with a lot of the things we do, and we take them into account every day. People heat up food stored in plastic containers (or they buy meals from places like Factor) without thinking of it, or drink bottled water in plastic bottles (or soda in plastic bottles), yet chemicals in the plastic leach into water or whatever is in the plastic that are hormone disruptors that can cause serious problems. My take is people should be made aware of the relative risks and be given guidelines on how to ameliorate the risks.
2 Likes
OK, then, we should attempt to avoid drinking alcohol, plastic water bottles, sugar, energy drinks, boba, fried foods, deli meats, sausages, cakes, cookies, red meat, GMO’s, cleaning products with carcinogens, cigarettes, etc.
I know I missed a million or two or three, but we can at least try, if we really wanted to, and obviously can afford to.
BTW, there are apps out there that can scan products for harmful ingredients and products. Our family uses one. For example, we recently changed hair shampoo.
And I can’t remember using plastic in the microwave in a really long time. We try to avoid using the microwave anyway. And hopefully people don’t stand in front of them either.
At the end of the day, if we live our lives in such constant fear, we might not encounter anything “toxic,” but we’ll die from the stress.
6 Likes
What is the risk with using, or standing in front of, the microwave oven?
1 Like
Doesn’t California have the worst air quality in the U.S.? Is a drink a day worse than breathing the most polluted air with every breath?
1 Like
Which app does your family use?
Standing in front of a microwave is not a problem, there is a lot of myth about that, but they are shielded. Not even sure if people with pacemakers have to worry any more. Likewise foods heated with a microwave are not irradiated or other foolishness I have heard.
As far as what to avoid, that is the sad truth of the way things are, it is hard to avoid things. Eating organic produce takes away some of the risks of insecticides and the like (though for example, organic produce has had problems with e coli), but it also is frightfully expensive. Standard meat that is raised in factory conditions has all kinds of problems with it, routine antibiotic use, hormones, and the way they are fed on corn (the meat is a lot more fatty and it has higher levels of omega 6 and lower levels of omega 3 fatty acids). You can eat grass fed beef, but it is very expensive.Farm raised fish, or seafood coming from overseas, has its own problems and may not be as healthy as it should be. It is all relative risk and you do what you can. With meat, if you limit the amount you eat of it, then grass fed for the times you eat it might be affordable. With produce, there are certain fruits and vegetables where it may be worth buying organic, but to me the real thing is to be eating more produce and fruit in your diet. Then there are things you should probably avoid, like energy drinks. If you are using plastic water bottles, you can get yourself a Britta filter or the like, and fill your own non plastic water bottles. Why the bottles are allowed to be made with compounds that are hormone disruptors or why they allow routine treating of meat animals with antibiotics is the real question, but since we don’t control that or have much choice, you do your best to minimize it. (One of the compounds that now is removed from most plastics,BPA, was originally invented as a synthetic hormone but was found to be too dangerous). If using cleaning products with carcinogens, you do what you can to minimize the risk, wear gloves, and if particularly caustic, wear a mask when using it. One of the real keys is knowing what you are eating and not assuming that it is totally safe, the way the FDA would have you believe and doing what you can to balance it all out. Colon cancer is now hitting young people in large numbers, and researchers are coming to the conclusion it is from things contained in food, especially processed food, even if the specifics have not been nailed down yet. We live in the ‘modern world’ and all we can do is do the best we can to moderate risks, and to try and be aware of what we are eating or doing. The reality is that in the end, we need to be informed, because there are risks out there and that regulation, while it can help protect is, has large flaws in it due to economic and political reality, there are a ton of things that are legal to produce and consume that you wonder why it is legal.
1 Like
I don’t know about apps, but ewg.org maintains a database of products and components that gives indication of safety or risk ().
1 Like
more here:
1 Like
I would not stand directly in front of a microwave.
Per Google:
No stress for me at all. It’s all a learning process and as I learn I try to improve my health, if possible.
It’s not just alcohol that one should avoid.
We use Yuka.
1 Like
You will also need a mass spec and a DNA sequencer. 
Because what’s written on labels is not always true. Especially for fish.
3 Likes
Of course lots of people get cancer who have never had an alcoholic drink. And runners die of heart attacks. It’s about reducing risk.
My husband (biologist who studied cancer) listened to a podcast a couple of years ago which included the information that the longitudinal studies that seemed to indicate moderate alcohol use was okay were completely tainted by the way they defined the control group. He stopped cold turkey. I joined him for a month, but decided I’d risk a little wine on the weekends, because I really feel it enhances a meal. I’m doing a dryish January. We went out to a nice restaurant on Friday and we both had a non-alcoholic cocktail, I followed that up with one glass of wine which they kindly allowed to be a 1/2 glass of white with the fish course, and a 1/2 glass of red with the meat.
2 Likes
Is there an app for that? 
2 Likes