I don't drink alcohol anymore.
I grow eight acres of wine grapes. I hope people buy the grapes and make excellent wine with it.
I have mixed feelings about alcohol.
Today's blog post isn't about politics.
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Last July |
Well, it is a little about politics because Donald Trump just pulled the U.S. out of the World Health Organization. The WHO advises that alcohol in any amount is unhealthy. "Any beverage containing alcohol, regardless of its price and quality, poses a risk of developing cancer."
Alcohol is a toxic, psychoactive, and dependence-producing substance and has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer decades ago – this is the highest risk group, which also includes asbestos, radiation and tobacco. Alcohol causes at least seven types of cancer, including the most common cancer types, such as bowel cancer and female breast cancer.
The U.S. Office of the Surgeon General began this year with a similar announcement. Alcohol isn't, on net, good for you.
This advisory highlights alcohol use as a leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, contributing to nearly 100,000 cancer cases and about 20,000 cancer deaths each year.
An idea floating in the American zeitgeist is that a little alcohol is good for you. At least red wine, and especially Pinot Noirs, are supposedly heart-healthy. Morley Safer, on the CBS show "60 Minutes," gave a huge boost to red wine sales beginning in 1991 when he described the "French Paradox." The French diet is rich with butterfat, yet heart disease is lower there than in the U.S. Morley Safer suggested that it was due to drinking red wine. It contains antioxidants, including resveratrol.
Most Americans don't perceive alcohol as particularly dangerous. After all, lots of people drink it and live long, healthy lives. Americans figure that alcohol is enjoyable and worth the risk, if done in moderation. And maybe the cancer risk, if there is one, is counteracted by the heart benefit, if there is one. One can hope.
The World Health Organization and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services say "No." Alcohol is bad for us.
The surgeon general report addresses quantity of alcohol consumed:
Who drinks, and how much? The 80-20 rule is in operation, and it is heavily skewed to the top decile.
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| Washington Post: Who drinks how much. |
I am not a scold or a preacher about alcohol. A person in that ninth decile, who drinks 15 drinks a week, two a day, may never be too impaired to drive, never show poor judgment, and never do clear damage to his or her health. But the vast majority of the alcohol drunk in America is by people in the tenth decile. They support the industry. People who down 10 drinks a day have a problem that goes beyond elevated cancer risk.
With any luck the unique pumice soil at my farm will produce an especially good wine, one that will be sold in bottles so expensive that few people will drink it to excess day after day. But as a future alcohol producer, I need to acknowledge that a small number of drinkers do most of the drinking, and they are drinking an unhealthy amount.
And alcohol consumers in any amount need to acknowledge that alcohol almost certainly isn't health food.
6 comments:
I suspect that Peter Sage is going to produce a high-quality wine, and not not a cheap variety sold at the Grocery Warehouse. I believe that most bums (drunks) drink cheap alcohol, and not the expensive stuff, so I doubt they'll ever taste Peter Sage's product.
And meanwhile, in the larger world, the Republicans are drunk on power, and the Democrats can do nothing but w(h)ine about it. Trouble is brewing in the ongoing ferment of American politics, and Trump has his opponents over a barrel…
Both Hitler and Trump were and are teetotalers. Nuf said.
Am I missing something? Your pie chart seems very counterintuitive. If I’m reading that right, I should up my intake of alcohol to five drinks per day to have the least chance of the development cancer.
The only people Trump has over a barrel are those pitiful Republicans who have to kiss his voluminous butt and pretend to take his bullshit seriously in order to get re-elected.
In my youthful wanderings, I got a good job as a teamster in Anchorage working for the only liquor distributor in the area. The warehouse was about the size of a city block. After a while, delivering to bars in the early morning got to be too depressing. They were required to close for an hour for cleaning and some people would just wait outside for them to reopen. We had to make sure someone was always in the truck to discourage theft. I realized I was just a drug pusher dealing a legal substance, but at least it motivated me to go back to school.
Alcohol use disorder is the most common type of substance use disorder in the United States.
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