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Comment by sh4rks | Hacker News Reader

> However, latest available data indicate that half of all alcohol-attributable cancers in the WHO European Region are caused by “light” and “moderate” alcohol consumption – less than 1.5 litres of wine or less than 3.5 litres of beer or less than 450 millilitres of spirits per week

Half a litre of beer a day is considered "light"?

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That’s basically 1 pint a day, or 16 oz as the ceiling for “light”. That seems reasonable? Not the amount necessarily just the classification.

If you drink the average every day, you will spend a large part of your days inebriated. And if you don't drink the average every day, you will be deeply drunk every few days.

It's completely unreasonable to call that level of consumption "light".

1 beer is not going to make anybody inebriated for a large part of their day. 3-4 beers will put someone into a good buzz but most will not be “deeply drunk” from that.

And again, this is the UPPER BOUND. not the average as you say

If you drink the average every day, you will spend a large part of your days inebriated.

You think that a pint of beer will leave you inebriated most of the day?

Two pints doesn't even put you over the drink driving limit in the UK.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/how-long-should-...

what on earth do you mean by inebriated?

i'd really like to know where all of these people that can't seem to handle a glass of beer, quite probably with something to eat, without freaking out are coming from?

1 pint of beer will get you drunk - more like your tolerance is abnormally low and your projecting it on everyone else.

maybe "not get you drunk"?

Maybe if you weigh 70 pounds or something.

>Half a litre of beer a day is considered "light"?

It's very light - in many (most not zero-tolerance) country is legal to drive. One beer is around 0.04-0.05% for a grown up man, around 2h after consumption it should be below 0.02%.

Beer in the EU is often ~4% alcohol. Half a liter is barely more than a can of Coors light in terms of alcohol volume.

>Beer in the EU is often ~4% alcohol.

Where would that be? German beer is usually 5-5.5%, same for Austria. In Norway it's 4.5-4.7%

"Desitka" ("10" meaning 10 plato degrees of sugar content before fermentation) is very popular in Czech Republic. It usually has 3.5% - 4% ABV. Beer consumption in Czech Republic is about 130l per person per year. That's 0.35l per person per day. It used to be closer to 0.5l but the average ABV % probably went up so alcohol consumption stayed about the same.

Fair enough, ~5% would be more accurate I guess. 16 oz at 5% is still a relatively small amount of alcohol in most cultures that historically consume it.

From that quote, I'd say it's the upper limit of what's considered "moderate".

it is where i come from - uk.

also they don't say how many of those cancers can actually be attributed directly to alcohol consumption. my guess would be few.

https://www.thelancet.com/article/S1470-2045(21)00279-5/full...

> Globally, an estimated 741 300 (95% UI 558 500–951 200), or 4·1% (3·1–5·3), of all new cases of cancer in 2020 were attributable to alcohol consumption

that is "estimated"

I don’t now how else you would do it. There isn’t any way to tell what caused any individual cancer, as far as I know.

That’s one bottle of beer. I’d call that light.

A bottle is 0.33 (or 330ml)

Where is that? 330ml bottles definitely exist, but 0.5l is the default in Austria.

uk, at least, but it also comes in 500ml

Netherlands

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