According to a report by Channel News Asia, World Health Organisation (WHO) is saying that drinking alcohol is proven to increase risk of getting certain types of cancer.

Now, that’s definitely making some you sit up, doesn’t it?

A research done by scientists at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Sweden’s Karolinska Institute has discovered that the alcohol industry has oftentimes presents vague or misleading information about the relationship between alcohol and cancer.

According to the report, the drink industry is an absolute scum because it either mispresents the data provided, or claims that the link between alcohol and cancer don’t exist.

On the other hand, the alcohol industry is fighting back.

The Distilled Spirits Council, a US alcohol trade association said that the report is highly selective with “anti-alcohol biases”. The International Alliance for Responsible Drinking, which represent large brewers and distillers also disagrees with the report’s conclusion.

In view of the on-going debate, we decided to dig deeper into this “report” and find out more, because why not.

In the report that we found, the scientists involved went through qualitative analysis of websites and documents from 27 alcohol industry organisations. All text relating to cancer was extracted and analysed thematically.

What followed after that was a load of accusations from these scientists with regards to the individual organisations and what they feel had been omitted from the websites.

Throughout the report, there was not even one paragraph which mentioned the type of cancers that a person can get through drinking. Nothing was also mentioned about the kind of drinking habits a person must have in order to get an increased risk of cancer. Random samplings were also on a low side at just 27 organisations.

So, we turned to Google for help and we found an article highlighting the types of cancer involved in drinking.

It appears that drinking has a clear scientific link to certain types of cancers such as cancer of the oral cavity, throat and voice box.

Other cancers include esophageal cancer, liver cancer, breast cancer and colorectal cancer. In order to increase risk of such cancers, a person needs to be a heavy drinker. A heavy drinker is defined as a man who has more than 4 drinks on any day (or more than 14 drinks in a week) or a woman who has more than 3 drinks on any day (or more than 7 in a week).

As for a moderate drinker, it is defined as not having more than 1 drink a day for women (or 7 drinks a week) and not having more than 2 drinks a day for men (or 14 drinks a week).

In an ironic turn of things, the article also mentioned that studies have shown that drinking can reduce the risk of 2 types of cancers, namely renal cell (kidney) cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) cancer.

The article also explained how alcohol can increase the risk of cancer, the effect of alcohol and tobacco on cancer risks as well as how one’s genes may affect alcohol-related cancers.

While it is true that drinking CAN increase the risk of cancer, it is only in view of the bad drinking habits of a person. If a person is drinking moderately, the risk of cancer is much lower than what the report wants us to believe.

If you are a drinker, make sure you are not drinking more than you should and we think you will be quite safe from the increased risk of cancer in your life!

After all, it’s always all about moderation.

But if can, drink lesser lah.

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This article was first published on goodyfeed.com

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