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Comment by evgen | Hacker News Reader

The article only tangentially touches upon his alcoholism without noting that the claimed effects of his diet in the 'documentary' was in fact not due to eating McDonalds for a month but was caused by drinking a fifth of vodka daily. Not really mentioned, but I would not be surprised to learn that this alcohol abuse was a significant contributing factor for his cancer.

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I understand we want to contribute cancer to something someone directly did, but that isn't always the case. Cancer sometimes just happens.

Definitely, but alcohol abuse definitely raises the odds of certain types of cancer. The specific type of cancer was not mentioned, but if it was liver or bowel cancer I would suggest alcohol played a role and if not I would classify this in the 'probably something that just happened' category.

Or certain head neck and stomach cancers. Or pancreatic cancer. A lot of cancers.

The metabolite of ethyl alcohol, acetaldehyde, is a well documented and potent carcinogen

Correct, but "carcinogen" is still a percentage of a chance of mutation developing. For example, there are heavy-alcohol users who don't develop cancer.

Rampant alcohol abuse is arguably the worst thing you could do to your body so it probably played a part - not talking a few beers a night; I mean a "fifth" of vodka a day like he said he drank. I used to be a heavy drinker, but at my worst, I probably drank half of that a few days a week for two years or so - I maybe drank a fifth in a day a few times - but it got to the point where I couldn't function, gout, weight gain, just generally feeling like dogshit. I don't understand how people can do that for decades and live let alone be successful.

The simple fact is that no amount of alcohol is good for you. Same goes for smoking anything, marijuana included. Also, processed meats are definitely carcinogens.

Yeah, cancer can "just happen" to anyone, but there are undeniable factors that can significantly increase your chances of getting it, such as poor diet or being overweight.

You might not like it, but those are the facts.

That said, I'll also put out there that I think a a lot of people are overly dismissive of "Supersize Me" by pointing to Spurlock's alcoholism, completely ignoring how bad fast food is, on every level.

In fact, cancer is always happening in practically everyone. Sometimes the body doesn't successfully kill off those cells, however.

> An estimated 6% of cancer cases can be attributed to alcohol consumption which increases the risk for cancers of the mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, liver, colorectum, and female breast. Approximately three or more drinks per day may also increase the risk of stomach and pancreatic cancer.

https://www.cancer.org/content/dam/cancer-org/research/cance...

Like most people, I think 750ml of liquor daily sounds incredible. That is equivalent to what the NIH defines as a "binge", three times every day. But to alcoholics that's a pretty average level of drinking. I always go back to this graph that still leaves me astounded. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2014/09/...

And just think, a small percentage of liquor store customers, comprise the majority of their revenues. That's why when the COVID lockdowns happened, liquor stores and carry out restaurants got special provisions to keep this customer base still drinking.

You just can't stop drinking alcohol; it can kill you.

In South Africa they banned alcohol during Covid - it is major driver of emergency hospital admissions and gender based violence and it dropped during Covid and we could treat Covid patients.

But the black market price of liquor and cigarette's went up by 300% and somebody delivered by drone.

Alcohol here in Norway is quite expensive. A good friend working as a ER nurse during COVID said about a year in that the biggest issue they faced were all the alcoholics drinking hand sanitizer.

I believe that graph was criticized as inaccurate, though I can't find a source now. Somewhat different from these figures in https://arg.org/news/drinking-norms-in-the-us/ which seem more plausible to me.

Two of my uncles and my grandpa drank heavily every day for most of their adult lives. They went out young, and the end wasn't pretty.

This is the first I heard of this. Did he start that drinking habit at the same time as the McDonald's thing? If it was already an old habit by the time he started, wouldn't his health be in the gutter from the start of the burger diet?

No, he was a long-term alcoholic and that is why his final health report was so bad. Add in the additional calories he was drinking each day plus any DTs from a hard-core drinker trying to go straight for a few days while filming a movie and the results are pretty much exactly what we would have expected to see.

I think they did report his medical readings in the actual movie, might be worth going back to visit if they made an actual baseline reading and see what glimpse that gives for his initial health.

The doctor in the documentary tells him that his liver is damaged like an alcoholic's. He just let people assume it was from the food.

I wonder what "demons" he had in his life.

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