Hacker News Reader

Comment by lanfeust6 | Hacker News Reader

What's interesting is how low alcohol ranks compared to obesity and diet. It makes the recent moral panic following loose interpretations of the Lancet study seem hypocritical, if not misguided. If anything deserves a "may cause cancer" sticker, it's nitrate-ridden processed meat.

View on HN

Nitrate ridden processed meat already has a “may cause cancer” sticker on it (unless you mean a literal sticker warning when you buy meat from stores?):

https://progressreport.cancer.gov/prevention/diet_alcohol/re...

https://publications.iarc.who.int/Book-And-Report-Series/Iar...

> unless you mean a literal sticker warning when you buy meat from stores?

What else could it possibly mean?

I thought they meant it figuratively I guess.. I don’t know in hindsight maybe that’s dumb?

I guess I see how you could read it like that, but no I'm pretty sure this was meant literally.

correct, and I mentioned it because cancer warnings are explicitly now on the table for policymakers in the West related to alcohol, iirc

> Nitrate ridden processed meat already has a “may cause cancer” sticker on it

Not in any country I've ever been in. Do you mean in the US?

I like to drink. With that being said, there are a lot of downsides to alcohol other than an increased risk of cancer. Also, alcohol can lead to obesity and a bad diet. Is it ever healthy to drink? I do not know. I am going to do it anyway though.

> Is it ever healthy to drink?

No. But drinking every now and then makes so little difference it's not a huge concern. Drinking a lot, though -- that's more problematic.

Like most of my friends around my age, I've cut out almost all alcohol in the last few years. None of us miss it. But it's still nice to drink occasionally, and I'm not going to stop entirely.

There's downsides to heavy or frequent drinking, sure. But since the cancer risk is minimal, what's the downside of a glass of wine or beer a couple of times a week?

I'm less convinced of the negatives of this than I used to be. Humans are quite well adapted to alcohol.

If it's something you enjoy, I'd say go for it, in moderation. It's probably less unhealthy than e.g. living in a city, eating processed meat, or working an office job.

Its all fun and games until you get cancer. I had cancer (and a few drinks) myself, it sucked. Can you ever be certain it was caused by an unhealthy lifestyle? No. Probability and causality is weird tbh.

Of course. It's just that cancer as a key risk factor has grown in salience.

How sure we are that something causes cancer and how often it causes cancer are not the same. Those WHO classifications are about the former. Usually the two are pretty much entwined, because you can more easily find larger effects. The effect of meats is a counterexample though: because it causes specific types of cancers that are otherwise rare you can be pretty sure it causes cancer even though the effect is not as big as e.g. smoking.

Is there really a moral panic? Apart from a few viral Twitter posts, I don't see a major sobriety push by my colleagues.

Profits of main alcohol suppliers has certainly taken a hit over the last 5 years but this is arguably far more because of rise of remote working, inflation (drinking at pubs have become much more costly than before) and people in general just addicted to their phone rather than going out (similar to the impact on almost all social activities no just going to pubs)

It's been covered everywhere in social media, including HN. Try the search function

Recent demographic shifts have given rise to a vocally anti-alcohol contingent in large parts of the Western world. There's substantial motivated reasoning.

Which recent demographic shifts?

Its not demographics, its American cultural influence.

In the US, there is a large demographic shift on alcohol drinking. What I've seen is not an explicitly vocal anti-alcohol stance. But younger generations just aren't as interested in it. At the very least what they consume is different.

My personal theory is that they are scared of ending up on the Internet when they don't have control.

People are broke. They can't afford the bottle or the place you go to to drink a glass. Or the Uber back/costs associated with a DUI. There's no reason to waste any of that money when you can just stay home and goon.

Of course, there are still people who go out and have a good time, or who grab a bottle on the way home from work. But as with most things these days, there's been a socioeconomic bifurcation that has split the fertile consumerist middle into haves and (mostly) have-nots. And the have-nots aren't bothering.

That's my theory too. When I was in college (late 1980s) the bars had dime beers. It was bottom-end lager and served in an 8 oz cup but still, going to the bars for a night could be done cheaply. Now a drink is $10 and you pay a cover charge even if there isn't a band performing.

I do not know the US well enough to comment, but the US has always been a lot more anti-alcohol than (almost anywhere in) Europe.

What I'm talking about is slightly different than that.

This is more like alcohol apathy - not drinking, but also not explicitly anti-alcohol. That the more generational shift in Gen Z that I've seen. But, those sentiments can certainly change over time.

What I have noticed in the UK is:

1. health concerns mean moderate drinkers drink less, but heavy drinkers have not changed their habits 2. young people seem to go more to extremes: either drink a lot or be teetotal.

A common consequence of taking GLP-1 receptor agonists is losing interest in alcohol.

Now, I agree that’s not the only factor — there’s something else going on reducing alcohol consumption even in people who’ve never taken GLP-1RAs — but when you have >10% of the population taking them, that’s another significant factor contributing to falling drinking rates.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com