450ml of liquor per week isn’t light to moderate by most definitions? If you don’t drink 2 nights a week that’s 5 medically significant binges per week, every week. One “drink” in this context is 1oz (~29ml). Most of the doctors I’ve been to, when asking how much you drink, will even ask of you have 15 drinks per week. They cut that off at 7+.
While a lot of us don’t know the link to cancer, I’d imagine most of us know there’s something there.
I’m fine with doing alcohol like we did cigarettes, I was just kinda shocked that they called “5 medically significant binges per week” light to moderate drinking??? Even when I was drinking an amount that people were talking about doing an intervention for, it was less than half of that (1oz (29.5ml) per day)
450ml of liquor per week isn’t light to moderate by most definitions?
If you read the one published by the WHO, It says “light” to “moderate” is less than 450ml, presumably meaning 450ml and over is considered “heavy” (which more or less lines up with 2 drinks a day.)
Generally, light is considered to be 1 drink a day, moderate is 1.5 and heavy is 2. So 1 drink a day is the cause of half of all alcohol-attributable cancers (according to the WHO).
Yep. Admittedly they didn’t know how much I was drinking, just how often, compared to the fact that I only drink a couple times a month most of the time.
The comment this was a reply to was specifically about many Americans not knowing there’s a link. I wasn’t even disputing the link in the comment, more just pointing out that 2 cups of liquor seemed like a whole lot to be classed as “Light to moderate” drinking imo
Edit: The comment this is in response to links an article that states many Americans don’t know there’s a link between the two*
None of this is really exact anyway. This is what doctors seem to go on
40%, 1.5oz liquor
12% 5oz wine
7%, 8oz malt liquoe
5%, 12oz beer
The problem is the beer I usually drink is in a 24 ounce can, and has 9.8% abv, and I don’t know a single person who would call that 4 drinks (which it is! One drink is .6oz of ethanol, and that can of beer has 2.4oz of ethanol)
Doctors try to get people to accurately report their lives because people aren’t thinking about this. I remember there was a place (Scotland maybe?) where they put how many “Units” of alcohol were in drinks, which I think is a good idea for these kinds of things. A unit seemed to be that 0.6oz (~17ml) of ethanol you get if you do the math on the earlier measurements.
I like a drink (obviously) as part of enjoying food, cooking, hosting and manage the risk by never having more than one in a day (this is probably 2 ‘units’ of alcohol if a cocktail or one if a glass of wine) but also not two days in a row, I try not to drink today if I did yesterday. Generally 3 drinks a week, 2 cocktails one glass of wine so 5 units. Sometimes less. I feel good physically, better than I did in the years I did not drink, but would not attribute it to drinking, we have more money now and better lifestyle overall, so slightly less stress.
In the UK we measured alcohol in units the recommended limit being 14/ week. Spirits like vodka are served in 1 unit = 25ml. So their low to medium drinking is already more than the UK national recommendation by 4 drinks and you’d be getting advice on how to reduce your drinking by a Dr.
Though that 450ml/week is real easy to get to that’s one vodka and coke per day if your free pouring rather than measuring. Many lay people wouldn’t consider that a problem at all.
Admittedly we do have a fairly problematic relationship with alcohol in this country.
Definitely agree with your take to make booze harder to get and more highly taxed like smoking. At least the younger generations seem to not be drinking so much.
Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of articles saying that GenZ is drinking less overall, and what they’re buying is nicer, which is making it harder for the alcopop companies that sell bulk cheap booze.
I think we tax alcohol higher in the States, and it depends on where you live for how difficult it is. Some places you can’t get any alcohol at the grocery store, some you can buy beer/wine at the grocery store, but anything harder is at a state-run liquor store, and some places they’ll sell you vodka at Walmart. There’s more variance, but yeah, depending on where you live alcohol’s more difficult to get than cigarettes, since those are at most grocery stores.
I clicked one of the links, and read the study.
450ml of liquor per week isn’t light to moderate by most definitions? If you don’t drink 2 nights a week that’s 5 medically significant binges per week, every week. One “drink” in this context is 1oz (~29ml). Most of the doctors I’ve been to, when asking how much you drink, will even ask of you have 15 drinks per week. They cut that off at 7+.
While a lot of us don’t know the link to cancer, I’d imagine most of us know there’s something there.
I’m fine with doing alcohol like we did cigarettes, I was just kinda shocked that they called “5 medically significant binges per week” light to moderate drinking??? Even when I was drinking an amount that people were talking about doing an intervention for, it was less than half of that (1oz (29.5ml) per day)
If you read the one published by the WHO, It says “light” to “moderate” is less than 450ml, presumably meaning 450ml and over is considered “heavy” (which more or less lines up with 2 drinks a day.)
Generally, light is considered to be 1 drink a day, moderate is 1.5 and heavy is 2. So 1 drink a day is the cause of half of all alcohol-attributable cancers (according to the WHO).
People wanted to intervene because you were drinking one short shot per day?
Yep. Admittedly they didn’t know how much I was drinking, just how often, compared to the fact that I only drink a couple times a month most of the time.
WHO classifies alcohol as carcinogenic as tobacco and asbestos. This is not new or controversial.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37905315/
The comment this was a reply to was specifically about many Americans not knowing there’s a link. I wasn’t even disputing the link in the comment, more just pointing out that 2 cups of liquor seemed like a whole lot to be classed as “Light to moderate” drinking imo
Edit: The comment this is in response to links an article that states many Americans don’t know there’s a link between the two*
450ml of what? 1oz of what? 100% ethanol? Drinks and liquor vary extremely widely and has no definition.
Liquor is commonly understood to be 40-50% ABV
None of this is really exact anyway. This is what doctors seem to go on
The problem is the beer I usually drink is in a 24 ounce can, and has 9.8% abv, and I don’t know a single person who would call that 4 drinks (which it is! One drink is .6oz of ethanol, and that can of beer has 2.4oz of ethanol)
Doctors try to get people to accurately report their lives because people aren’t thinking about this. I remember there was a place (Scotland maybe?) where they put how many “Units” of alcohol were in drinks, which I think is a good idea for these kinds of things. A unit seemed to be that 0.6oz (~17ml) of ethanol you get if you do the math on the earlier measurements.
I like a drink (obviously) as part of enjoying food, cooking, hosting and manage the risk by never having more than one in a day (this is probably 2 ‘units’ of alcohol if a cocktail or one if a glass of wine) but also not two days in a row, I try not to drink today if I did yesterday. Generally 3 drinks a week, 2 cocktails one glass of wine so 5 units. Sometimes less. I feel good physically, better than I did in the years I did not drink, but would not attribute it to drinking, we have more money now and better lifestyle overall, so slightly less stress.
In the UK we measured alcohol in units the recommended limit being 14/ week. Spirits like vodka are served in 1 unit = 25ml. So their low to medium drinking is already more than the UK national recommendation by 4 drinks and you’d be getting advice on how to reduce your drinking by a Dr. Though that 450ml/week is real easy to get to that’s one vodka and coke per day if your free pouring rather than measuring. Many lay people wouldn’t consider that a problem at all.
Admittedly we do have a fairly problematic relationship with alcohol in this country.
Definitely agree with your take to make booze harder to get and more highly taxed like smoking. At least the younger generations seem to not be drinking so much.
Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of articles saying that GenZ is drinking less overall, and what they’re buying is nicer, which is making it harder for the alcopop companies that sell bulk cheap booze.
I think we tax alcohol higher in the States, and it depends on where you live for how difficult it is. Some places you can’t get any alcohol at the grocery store, some you can buy beer/wine at the grocery store, but anything harder is at a state-run liquor store, and some places they’ll sell you vodka at Walmart. There’s more variance, but yeah, depending on where you live alcohol’s more difficult to get than cigarettes, since those are at most grocery stores.
Anywhere you can buy food here you can probably get alcohol. Corner shops, petrol stations, supermarkets all have booze.