Everything Gives You Cancer, Even Wine
Ξ January 8th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ A Day at a Time, Technology, Wine News |
One of the oddest health warnings I’ve ever encountered was set loose upon the web December 27th by a certain Dr. Rachel Thompson, identified in some press reports as Science Program Manager (though this WCRF pdf identifies her as a ‘Review Coordinator’) of the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF). From this organization, distilled to but one proper name, was issued the proclamation that a large glass of wine increases bowel and liver cancer risk by up to 20%. The media, from Alaska to Uzbekistan, Kyoto to Dubai, went viral with the story, and the world caught a cold. In an instant, on the threshold of the New Year, I surely was not alone in wondering whether the next Champagne I uncorked for friends and loved ones might be our last. What a buzz-kill, so to speak. Exactly why I kept the ‘news’ breaking from the WCRF to myself, well beyond the stroke of Midnight.
Twenty percent increase…. Hmmm, let’s see. Revelers coming to our house traveled from far away. They drove to Santa Cruz in cars off-gassing exotic chemical compounds. The congested freeways were thick with hydrocarbon exhaust. One visiting family, illustration enough, passed by a flaring oil refinery, a power plant, dozens of fast food franchises, through the smoke of a feedlot incinerating downer cattle. 
Stopped at a 7/11 for gas and a carbonized hot dog snack for their hungry kid drawn and quartered in a Chinese-made safety seat. They gave a soiled dollar to the drifter shivering on the median parsing the left turn lane and the on-ramp. (”Oh god, I touched him! Hand me the Purell.”) Back on the highway they drank zero calorie soda from a P.E.T. bottle. Ate chips and Slim Jims interlarded with the finest ingredients yet fabricated by modern industrial food science. All along the 100 mile trip they mainlined Exxon, Union Carbide and Monsanto products.
So when this particular family arrived at our house on the eve of the 1st, I am supposed to inform them they’ve come to yet another source of toxicity, to wit, the very wines we will share? Not a chance.
I actually read the relevant sections of the report upon which the WCRF warning on alcohol consumption is based. And I can tell you it is a peculiar document. Let’s begin:
The World Cancer Research Fund, founded in 1982, with chapters in the US, the UK, the Netherlands, Hong Kong and most recently, France, calls itself an independent charitable organization dedicated to
“research and education on food, nutrition, physical activity and the prevention of cancer.”
Moreover, one of their most substantial contributions to cancer research generally is the periodically updated publication Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention of Cancer. Contained in it is the distillation of 100s of scientific reports relating to WCRF’s charter gathered from around the world. Paper selection passes through a three stage process. (All terms and structural elements are taken from the WCRF site.)
Stage 1: A task force develops a methodology to use in its systematic review of the relevant literature.
Stage 2: Then systematic literature review teams are created to perform reviews of the links between diet, nutrition and cancer.
Stage 3: Then comes the interpretation (emphasis added) of the evidence, the development of recommendations, and the final approval of the report’s content.
In the interests of economy I am interested only in Stage 3, specifically the meaning of the “interpretation of the evidence”.
So what might we glean from WCRF’s report as to their interpretive approach to the culture of drinking? The report makes abundantly clear alcohol is alcohol. Beginning from section 4.8 titled ‘Alcoholic Drinks’ we read on page 157:
Alcohol relaxes people’s social inhibitions, but it is addictive [....] The evidence does not show any ’safe limit’ of intake.
On page 158:
Alcohol is liable to be addictive. Its specific effects are to induce a mood of euphoria and disinhibition, which may be dangerous. Much domestic and other violence, and many reckless and violent incidents, and crimes such as arson, wounding, homicide, and car crashes, are alcohol-related.
And on page 159:
Self-reporting of consumption of alcoholic drinks is liable to underestimate consumption, sometimes grossly, because alcohol is known to be unhealthy and undesirable, and is sometimes drunk secretly.
I encourage readers to visit the report and judge for themselves whether I am cherry picking only the negative pronouncements. But I assure you these are the most culturally relevant passages with respect to alcohol in the entire document (with one addition glossed below). Which is to ask after what policy suggestions or legislative agenda might follow upon the science by so exclusively a hostile spin?
Indeed, WCRF actively promotes what they call ‘Public Health Goals’. For alcohol their goal is as follows:
“Proportion of the population drinking more than the recommended limits to be reduced by one third every ten years”.
One wonders how this reduction will be achieved unless, of course, Michael Broadbent is one day photographed passed out, face down in a London gutter wearing only a stained wife-beater tee. That might change a few minds.
The one exception I mentioned above is from page 159, box 4.8.1:
The Panel judges that alcoholic drinks are or may (emphasis added) be a cause of various cancers, irrespective of the type of alcoholic drink. [....] [F]or cancers of the mouth, pharynx, and larynx, the evidence is stronger for consumption of beer and spirits than for wine. Here is the possibility of residual confounding: wine drinkers in many countries tend to have healthier ways of life than beer or spirit drinkers.
What is meant by the phrase ‘healthier ways of life’? And how might they mitigate the cancer risk? Though this is perhaps the most important qualification in the report with respect to wine no insight is given as to its full significance. It would be safe, however, to hazard a guess based on the charter of the WCRF itself: exercise, sleep well, don’t smoke, eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, have a positive outlook on life, regular dental check-ups, you know, heed the advice your mother gave you.
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