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Comment by valgor | Hacker News Reader

I know they are trying to be practical with "reduce meat intake" and "drink less", but meat and alcohol is on par with smoking and they say "don't smoke". I hope we get to a point where we can say "don't eat meat or drink alcohol" just like we say "don't smoke". If the point is to stop cancer from happening, not doing any of those things is huge.

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He says that the reporting of nutritional data about cancer can be very confusing, and references the work of the statistician David Spiegelhalter from the University of Cambridge, who has shown that even if everyone ate an extra 50g of bacon every day, that would only increase the incidence of colon cancer from 6% to 7%. “I think it is about having a healthy, balanced diet,” says Sivakumar, “and occasionally having a sweet treat or a steak.”

Def not on par with smoking.

Processed red meat is a class one carcinogen and red meat is a class two. Smoking is a class one. What this means is there is a direct, provable correlation to consuming these products to cancer. Sure, a cigarette may not cause the same level of harm as one steak, but they both cause cancer. So, if you goal is to reduce as far and wide as possible your chances of cancer, meat should be off the plate. The "balance" approach is only to be practical, so I find it odd we never say to have a balanced approach with smoking, but we will with red meat.

Just because they are both class one doesn't mean they are on the same level quantitatively.

Also red meat doesn't cause addiction. I don't feel like I crave red meat if I've just been eating chicken and fish for the whole week.

Fresh unprocessed red meat is not directly known to cause cancer but it's implicated by the association to smoked/processed red meat that is a strong carcinogen. IARC says that maybe it can increase the risk of certain cancers but there is no direct evidence like with processed red meat.

Indeed -- though reducing seems to have other benefits.

Though as far as is practicable [0], one should not drink alcohol. No amount is safe or good enough for you to offset the other risks.

[0] life is short and not all social offers of a drink should necessarily be turned down, unless you're willing to figuratively or literally show the trappings of "one who must not" (pregnant, alcoholic, religion, training for sports, on medication, etc.)

At least the information is out there for anyone to read: no level of alcohol consumption is safe for your health.

- https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...

- https://www.who.int/azerbaijan/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level...

There are of course also counter-programming, like "Surprising Ways Alcohol May Be Good for You" (https://www.webmd.com/diet/ss/slideshow-alcohol-health-benef...).

The Recommended Glasses of Wine per Week index could be a RNG source.

Opposing information from mayoclinic with a link to a webmd post (i refuse to even call it an article), with zero actual scientific information in it, reduces the value of your comment. Which, otherwise, I fully agree with. There is no "although" here. Alcohol is bad for your health. That doesn't mean you should or should not drink X amount, that is anyone's free choice. But we don't live in the Dark Ages where it was suposedly good for you (...only compared to the alternative being bacteria ridden waste water).

Totally agree with you. The reason I included the webmd example and labeled it “counter-programming” was merely to highlight that the average person is faced with conflicting information (I bet even MDs don’t uniformly say any amount of alcohol is bad for you).

The webmd article is especially pernicious because the “positives” probably resonate with many (most?) people and gives people an “out” to optimize for the moment rather than their health. Webmd should do better.

Now I understand your reasoning for using that example, it fits the purpose quite well.

Cancer isn't the only disease you're trying to prevent. Your approach that single-mindedly reduces your risk of cancer may very well increase your risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes - both diseases which are far more prevalent in the general population.

A diet rich in proteins provided by grilled chicken breast and salmon, and low in simple carbs such as sugar, pasta, and rice, will dramatically reduce your risks for the most prevalent diseases and not increase your risk of cancer.

You need to take a moderate and wholistic view of health.

Once you get hit by an autoimmune disease your stance will turn into "eat only meat" quickly.

Meat isn't on par with alcohol and tobacco.

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