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US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy A piece of advice Americans on Friday called for health warning labels on alcoholic beverages, warning that drinking alcohol increases their risk of cancer.
Surgeon general recommendations are strongly worded warnings intended to convey clear messages about health risks. Recommendations are reserved for cases that are unusual and require immediate awareness and action. They often become turning points in the country's health practices. The 1964 Surgeon General's Report on Smoking, for example, began to change the perception that cigarettes were good.
The new advice helps to do the same for drinking a drink that was once thought to be associated with some health benefits. The new report aims to dispel any notion that alcohol is harmless.
“Alcohol is a well-documented and preventable cause of cancer, accounting for nearly 100,000 cancer cases and 20,000 cancer deaths in the United States each year — more than the 13,500 alcohol-related traffic deaths in the U.S. annually — but most Americans are unaware of this risk,” Murthy said. he said in a statement..
About 70 percent of Americans drink alcohol, and many are confused about whether the occasional drink is good or bad, says Dr. Brian P. Lee, a liver specialist at Keck Medicine at the University of Southern California who researches alcohol health problems. For them.
In the year Only 45 percent of Americans surveyed by the American Institute for Cancer Research in 2019 said they believed that drinking alcohol causes cancer, the new advisory notes.
“A lot of the confusion comes from previous studies that were not as robust and probably based on inaccurate methods,” Lee said.
The new surgeon general's report is more in line with modern evidence, he said.
“Even light drinking … really has no benefit, and may even be harmful,” he said.
Alcohol is the third leading cause of cancer in the US after tobacco and obesity, the new advice says. He notes that the link between alcohol consumption and cancer risk is well established for at least seven types of cancer: breast, colorectal, esophageal, liver, mouth, throat, and voice box. And regardless of the type of alcohol, the risk remains, and increases with high consumption.
Increasingly, Evidence it has Installed Abstaining from alcohol because of its health risks challenges the notion that some alcohol—especially red wine—is beneficial to health, challenging decades of understanding.
Still, differences persist: Report In December, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine concluded that moderate drinking — two or fewer drinks a day for men and one for women — may be associated with lower cardiovascular disease risks. In addition, moderate drinking has been shown to increase the risk of certain types of cancer.
“There was a time when we thought that red wine increased the risk of some cancers, but the positive effects on cardiovascular disease outweighed the negative effects on cancer,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, an oncologist and former director of medicine and science at Johns Hopkins University. American Cancer Society Officer.
Over the past three years, however, a series of scientific data and comprehensive research reviews have debunked that idea.
“People need to be warned,” Brawley said. “There is no safe amount of alcohol.”
Alcohol causes cancer in at least four ways, advises. It breaks down into a chemical called acetaldehyde, which damages DNA. Damaged DNA can then cause cells to divide out of control, leading to cancer.
“It's an obvious method for sites that have direct contact,” said Dr. Beatrice Lauby Secretan, head of the handbook program at the International Agency for Research on Cancer, or IARC. Those areas include the mouth, esophagus, stomach and intestines, she added.
The latest IARC report About 20% of the 75,000 lip and mouth cancers diagnosed worldwide each year are caused by, for example, alcohol consumption.
Alcohol creates unstable molecules called free radicals, which can damage DNA and lead to cancer.
It alters the levels of hormones such as estrogen and testosterone, which increases the risk of cancers in hormone-sensitive areas such as the breast and prostate.
Dr. Shuji Ogino, professor of epidemiology and pathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, says alcohol depletes levels of important nutrients such as B vitamins and folate.
When alcohol interacts with other carcinogens, such as cigarettes, it extracts large amounts of cancer-causing substances from those products and increases their effects. This makes it a particularly dangerous companion to any tobacco product, including smokeless tobacco.
“Two plus two does not equal four anymore. Two plus two equals six,” said Lauby Secretan.
For cancers such as breast, mouth and throat, the risk may begin to increase with one drink or less per day, according to the Surgeon General's Office. He also noted that any individual's cancer susceptibility is influenced by a variety of factors, including their biology and environment.
Alcohol increases the risk of cancer in both sexes, but the risk of drinking is greater in women than in men.
An 80-year-old woman has an estimated 17 percent lifetime risk of developing an alcohol-related cancer, even if she drinks less than once a week, the report said. This risk increases with alcohol consumption. Women who had one drink a day had a 19 percent increased risk of developing alcohol-related cancer, and two drinks a day had a nearly 22 percent increased risk of developing alcohol-related cancer.
For men, those same risks are 10% for less than one drink a week, 11% for one drink a day, and 13% for two drinks a day.
There are several reasons why women are more susceptible to alcohol-related cancers. Body size is one factor. Women are generally younger, “so when you consume the same amount of alcohol, you have the same amount of blood in your blood and every cell in your body exposed to alcohol,” Lee said.
Alcohol interacts with body fat, which women have more than men, and disrupts hormonal balance, which can trigger the development of breast and prostate cancer, he said.
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Two delicious recipes to start your dry January
Doctors said they were happy to see the new advice.
“I was very excited about this report,” said Dr. David Greenberg, chief of hematology and oncology at Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center. “I have been singing kindly for a few years now.
“It's amazing how many of my family and friends and patients don't know how dangerous and toxic alcohol is,” he said.
Greenberg says he's a drinker but watches his consumption. “Dry January” is a social movement to encourage abstinence from drinking alcohol in the first month of the year.
“If you play by the book, you shouldn't drink any alcohol because it's all toxic,” he says, but he tells his patients that total abstinence isn't very realistic or fun.
“If you're going to drink, it should be done in moderation, not too often,” he said.
Studies show that certain groups are getting the message of moderation. They are mocktails. Gaining social acceptance Distillery and spirits manufacturers are offering more non-alcoholic options for their products.
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Young adults in the United States are beginning to view drinking as unhealthy. An August Gallup poll Half of Americans say having one or two drinks a day is bad for one's health — the highest percentage recorded in the study's 23 years. Young adults say drinking is bad for their health.
The Surgeon General's Recommendation calls for guidelines on alcohol consumption, considering cancer risk, and seeks to increase awareness of the relationship to cancer risk for individuals when deciding how much to drink and whether to drink.
“I agree with this 100%, and there should be a warning label,” Ogino said. “It should have happened a little earlier,” he said, but better late than never.
An updated warning label on alcoholic beverages to reflect cancer risk would require approval from Congress. The currently required warning states that women should not drink alcohol during pregnancy and that drinking alcohol can impair the ability to drive or operate machinery and may cause health problems. The recommendation is “In It has remained unchanged since its inception in 1988.
The current warning “has long informed consumers of the potential dangers of alcohol consumption,” Dr. Amanda Berger, senior vice president of science and research at the Distilled Spirits Council, said in a statement Friday. “Many lifestyle choices carry potential risks and it is the role of the federal government to determine proposed changes to warning statements based on the body of scientific research.”
Marty told 's Wolf Blitzer on Friday that health care providers can help raise awareness of the risks.
“Doctors and nurses can play a role in educating patients about this. And I want everyone to know, especially if you're concerned about this, if you have a personal or family history of cancer, one of the things you can do to reduce your risk is to rethink how much you drink,” Murthy said.
The American Medical Association, which has long recognized alcohol as a cancer risk, welcomed the new advice.
“Today's advice, combined with the push to update the surgeon general's health warning label on alcoholic beverages, will raise awareness, improve health and save lives,” AMA President Dr. Bruce Scott said in a statement.
Murthy provides surgeon general advice on topics including firearms abuse. Loneliness and isolation, social media and youth mental health, and Mental health of parents.