The Buried Alcohol-Cancer Study

Philip Pape 0:00

Did you know that back in 2022, the US government commissioned a study on alcohol and cancer? The study was finished, and then someone decided, eh, maybe we don't want to release that. Meanwhile, the Surgeon General is calling for cancer warning labels on bottles of alcohol, and many Americans, many people in general, have no idea alcohol is even linked to cancer. So, what exactly is in that buried report? And what does the evidence we do have say about your cancer risk when it comes to alcohol? Let's find out. And today is gonna be an interesting one because we're talking about alcohol, but from a different perspective. Now, I'm not here to tell you to never have a beer or a glass of wine. I have one myself on rare occasions, but what I am here to do is give you a full, unfiltered picture of what the evidence shows so you can make truly authentically informed decisions about your health.

Why Transparency In Public Health Matters

Philip Pape 1:11

And when a government, in this case the US government, commissions a scientific study with your tax dollars, whatever your opinion is on that, and then they complete the study and then they refuse to release the findings from a frankly perfectly well done study, that is a bit concerning. It's also an issue with transparency, especially when you went through this whole process and then you buried the information. And the information is actually pretty powerful when it comes to the stuff that we care about on this podcast. And I hope you know nobody might now. I'm trying, I try not to be preachy. I just want to be honest about, you know, when information's out there and there are different actors, different players, whether it's uh an influencer on social media or government institution or an individual that are hiding something or not telling the full story, that we can bring out what the reality is and really focus on that, not so much on attacking all of these sources. That's not what I do. I don't do the hot takes and the call-outs. It's more of, hey, what do you need to know? So here I'm just gonna jump into it today because it's a this pretty cool topic, to be honest. It's it's scary though. Um, here are the facts that are based on some different investigative reports that I was able to get on podcasts, on news, on different sources. And this is obviously the first source of potential issue in that what can you trust today when it comes to news? But I I kind of pieced it together, and it looks like back uh three years ago, 2022, the HHS, HHS, the Health and Human Services in the US, commissioned the alcohol

How The Study Vanished And Why

Philip Pape 2:43

intake and health study. Okay, the alcohol intake and health study. And you're obviously free to look all of this up online, make your best decision and judgment about this information. And the goal of the study was to gather the latest evidence on alcohol and health so that they could update the federal dietary guidelines. So this is taxpayer-funded research, and most of this research, and in this case, it was conducted by independent academic groups. Okay. So assuming we trust, you know, who did the study, we're not going to get into that. The study was done, it was completed, it was finalized, ready for pop publication, and then crickets. And I'm not even, many of us don't even know about this. Um honestly, I didn't learn about it until this year. That's why I'm doing this episode. So just in the last few months, different reports found that despite the report being completed, the federal officials didn't release it, probably due to, you guessed it, politics, industry pressure, whatever, whatever the motives are, the research was paid for, which it kind of pisses me off, right? Because these are my tax dollars, they're spending on this stuff, and again, whether you agree or not, and then someone's like, hey, we did the study, it was a good study, but we're not gonna release the data for ulterior reasons.

Surgeon General’s Call For Warning Labels

Philip Pape 3:52

So if we go back to January of 2025, the Surgeon General Vivek Murphy issued a public advisory calling for cancer warning labels on all alcohol. And he cited evidence linking alcohol to seven cancer types. And I think he all even mentioned that most Americans don't even know that alcohol causes cancer. And it's not something that we talk about too often, although the few guests that I've had on to discuss alcohol have absolutely discussed the long-term links and correlations between alcohol and cancer. And at the time, if you go back and look at the data, what happened? Well, the stock market for alcohol stocks took a tank, you know, took a drop, and there was some pushback by industry. And then the study itself that was buried, people are like, hey, did you know this was out there? Maybe this is relevant. What maybe we should see what it actually says. And then you go to mid-2025, so this is a few months later, there's some reports in the news that show the federal, the drafts of the federal guidance were being watered down. So you have this international consensus starting to tighten around the risks of alcohol and cancer. And then the guidance here in the US for the federal guide guidelines starts going the opposite direction, dropping all this language about stronger limits. And then in October, so literally, I think when this episode comes out, actually, if yeah, October 2025, there was another piece of evidence that reaffirmed alcohol is a major preventable cause of cancer with no amount, no amount of alcohol being entirely risk-free. I think that was the IARC. So you've got the stronger warnings on one hand, you've got our surgeon general in the US even kind of agreeing with that. Then you have this funded study being kept from public view. So that's kind of the background. Whatever you make of it, I hope I didn't, I hope I gave it a pr fairly objective treatment of just telling you all the sides of what's going on.

International Evidence Tightens On Risk

Philip Pape 5:46

And so what if we just ignored all that and said, hey, what does the evidence say already about alcohol and cancer? What does the existing research say? The National Cancer Institute does have a public fact sheet. You can look it up, and it says clearly that alcohol consumption is a risk factor for several cancers. And it has the strongest evidence for seven in particular: breast cancer in women, colorectal cancer, esophageal, liver, laryngeal, oral cavity cancer, and pharyngeal cancer. Of course, you can hear several mouth cancers in there, right? So you've got colon, you've got esophagus, esophagus, liver, various parts of the mouth and throat, breast cancer in women. And there's nothing mysterious about this, right? We know how alcohol works in the body. It gets broken down, gets broken down into acetyldehyde, which, and I never pronounce that right. That's the toxin. And what that toxin does, one of the things that toxin does is damages your DNA. Like many foreign substances that damage DNA, just like when you smoke, anybody who smokes, you're basically constantly damaging and mutating your DNA. That's why it leads to cancer. And the other thing that consumption of alcohol does is it limits nutrient absorption. We know that it turns off all processing of all the other macros while your body is metabolizing the alcohol. And that could have an impact against cancer protection mechanisms

What The Science Already Shows

Philip Pape 7:04

in the body, like folate. Okay, so now you're not absorbing certain nutrients, at least for a time, especially if you're a frequent drinker. But you don't even have to be that frequent of a drinker. We're gonna get to that. It also affects your hormones, it increases estrogen and other hormones that are tied to breast cancer and acts as a solvent, which helps carcinogens penetrate your cell membrane. So it's just a lot of interesting mechanisms. And of course, as always, the dose response relationship is important. It's relevant because the more you consume, the higher your risk. What's important to know though is even very light drinking shows an elevated risk for certain cancers versus no drinking. So it's kind of like that big step up. It's kind of like you go from your baseline, you have even one drink, and you get a step up, another drink, another step up. And so we're trying to figure out that point at which we should really be concerned, especially if we care about our health and longevity. Now, in this, I think it's in the same fact sheet, or I don't know where I got it, but I have notes from the NCI that says that some cancers, like female breast cancer, for those, the risk increases even at moderate, quote unquote, or light quote unquote levels. So one drink per day increases breast cancer risk, and two drinks per day roughly doubles certain cancer risk. And this is compared to non-drinkers, of course. The WHO Europe 2023, again, you guys can judge these institutions however you want. I'm just sharing the information. They said, quote, when it comes to alcohol consumption, there's no safe amount that does not affect health. And, you know, a lot of people say, hey, this is one of the world's leading public health organizations. Whether you agree with it or not, it's it's a pretty strong statement, right? And it's out of Europe, where they actually have a lot of alcohol consumption. So that's interesting too, for what it's worth. The IARC classifies alcohol as a group one carcinogen, which is the same category as tobacco and asbestos. And it means that there's enough evidence that it does cause cancer in humans. So I would at least want to play it a little bit safe here and say, okay, there's a link between alcohol and cancer to some extent. There is. And if we have information via recently funded studies that further strengthen that evidence and that gets buried,

Mechanisms: From Acetaldehyde To DNA Damage

Philip Pape 9:19

you have to question why. And maybe you don't care about why. Maybe you just care that the fact that it was buried and we want to know the information. What is the information? And I'm gonna just take a quick break here because we're gonna get into the politics of public health in a bit. We're gonna talk about some of the nuances and then what this means for you practically. We have a lot of interesting information outside the podcast, and much of it is free, including these free guides. If you go to wits and waste.com slash free, I was going through our guides and I realized we have one called Eating Out, the Eating Out Guide. And it's one of the most common questions I get is like, what do I do when I go out and I'm presented with alcohol and appetizers and salads and I'm going out with friends, they're having pizza, all that stuff. So go to wits and waste.com slash free, free or click the link in the show notes for my eating out guide. I think it's a good compliment to since we're talking about alcohol today and you probably tuned in to learn about alcohol, it's a good way to make smart choices and handle social drinking situations and stay aligned with your goals and still enjoy life, right? And and that that's back, that's bringing us back to the practical side of this. So witsandwaits.com slash free or click the link in the show notes. All right, that was just a quick tangent because now we get back into the serious stuff. Why was this study buried? If you look at the US alcohol industry, it's massive, right? Tens of billions in annual revenue, probably big lobbying power in Washington, like many industries. And I'm sure they don't want cancel cancel warning labels on their products because they've seen what's happened to the cigarette industry since that occurred. And that's because these labels tend to work, right? When you put warnings on products, people consume fewer of them. They start talking about them a different way. We know smoking dropped dramatically after the warning labels and the PR campaigns, the public education campaigns, to the point where I've seen in my own lifetime, I was born in 1980, you know, smoking sections in restaurants and lots of people smoking everywhere, to it's like stigma. It's a stigma now that you know you're ostracized if you smoke. For again, for better or worse, whatever, you know, freedom, choice, blah, blah, blah. Not even getting into any of that. I'm just sharing what I've seen happen. And so the alcohol industry, alcohol is a very interesting thing because we we glamorize it, right? And again, I consume alcohol very rarely

Dose, Light Drinking, And Risk

Philip Pape 11:28

these days compared to what I used to because I understand its health impacts and I don't, I want to take care of my health. But there, there's been a lot of messaging over the decades, like red wine is good for your heart. You guys have heard that one. You've heard the talk about resveratrol in red wine. And all of those have been debunked. Like there is zero positive to alcohol in any respect whatsoever. Zero, zero. So if you're still hearing some of those messages, or alcohol is fine in moderation, like that it's healthy in moderation, absolutely zero. No, that is not true. There's zero positive when it comes to alcohol. I just want to put that out there. Okay. That's different from saying you can't ever enjoy, I shouldn't use the word enjoy, but imbibe or consume something that you want to consume for some reason that's different. Okay. And you think of terms like responsible drinking and moderation. Again, that is interesting language that twists what you think about them. Where you're like, okay, this is, I get social benefits. You know, you look at beer commercials, Corona, whatever, where they're partying on the beach, right? We we all know the thing. And certain things get glamorized as well, even in other areas, like cigars. I am surprised. A lot of my friends who are listening are probably gonna be called out on this that you've got guys in the fitness industry who smoke cigars and think that's okay. I'll say not okay. It's perfectly okay from a freedom perspective and choice perspective, but it still has some cancer risk, just like cigarette smoking. It's just a fact. And they may know this and they may choose to do it anyway, and that's fine too. So we got to look at data and also understand marketing. And then when we throw politics into the mix, now we have science and politics bashing heads, which is always uh an interesting partnership. Because again, the Surgeon General actually called for warning labels, which means it got to a level where they were possibly going to do that, right? And he doesn't even control the labeling. Congress does, right? And that, and of course, the industry knows that, so of course, they they just have to prevent Congress from doing that. And I think they've been successful, right? It looks like they've been successful. So that's kind of the politics behind it. Again, for better or worse, what you believe, whatever side of the aisle you're on, et cetera. So I want to I want to steel man the other side because I do want to give enough nuance and I guess fairness if that's if that word even applies here. I'm not sure. Not all cancer associations with alcohol. So not all links between cancer and alcohol are equally strong across all consumption levels. Remember, I mentioned breast cancer before. I mentioned that specifically because they get separated out as far as their impact. A there was a National Academy's report that basically said, look, some have a much more cautious or conservative link based on what we think we see in the evidence. And that there's a lot of mixed evidence as well, which is to be expected in the scientific community. If you listen to my episode with Dr. Eric Helms, we go into great depth on falsification and on empiricism and all of that. What we do know is the link between what's called moderate consumption and colon cancer is well established. And that that concerns me as someone with a history and who you know is male because that that tends to affect more men, right? Just like breast cancer affects

Politics, Industry Pressure, And Labels

Philip Pape 14:41

more women. For other cancer types, the relative risk increase at low levels of alcohol is small, it's still non-zero, but it's smaller than, say, colon cancer or the breast cancer. Now, the way that we talk about these risks is important too because it's very confusing, right? If one drink per day increases breast cancer risk, what does that mean in absolute terms? What does that mean? If you look at the baseline lifetime risk for US women for breast cancer, it's 13%. And one drink per day might increase that to 14 to 15%. Now, is that a big deal? Statistically, it is. Individually, you might say that it's not, but you can only weigh these risks if you know about them. That's kind of the point. That's why I'm actually making this episode. Right now, less than half of Americans actually know that alcohol causes any type of cancer at all. And I think that's a big gap in awareness. And I'll be honest, I really wasn't clear on that till much, till very recently, especially when I got into the nutrition world, finally started to be like, okay, we need to pay attention to this stuff. You know, we need to pay attention to this because the link is much stronger than, say, the link between eating processed foods and cancer, let's say. Not to be confused with overconsumption of any food where you get where you have obesity and that's linked to cancer. That's a whole different discussion. So, I mean, this data that came from this buried report could have informed some more clear guidance, I suppose. Right. Instead, we still have this confusion, this gap, whatever you want to call it. So, what do you want, what do you do with this information? You're like, all right, Philip, that's all interesting. This is not a news podcast, this is not a political podcast, great. What do we do? All right, first, understand what a standard drink is. I think that's helpful because a lot of you are underestimating your consumption, just like we do with food, especially when we're not tracking. A standard drink isn't that big, guys. A standard drink is five ounces of wine, which is like that very small glass of wine that you're a little bit upset that they poured you in this restaurant. You're like, come on, you're charging me 12 bucks for that. 12 ounces of beer. Okay, again, who gets 12 ounces of beer? That's a can of beer. That's not like a pint. Now, granted, some restaurants have those very thick glasses that are like 14 ounces, they call it a pint, you know what I mean. Or one and a half ounces of spirits, right? Any hard liquor. Anything you pour at home is gonna be way more than that. Come on, admit it. Admit it. Second, I want you to think about frequency over quantity. Not not always, but often. I want you to think about that. Because seven drinks in one night

Debunking “Alcohol Is Healthy” Myths

Philip Pape 17:12

is different physiologically than one drink per night for seven nights, even at the same weekly total. And you're gonna say, like, which one is worse? You know what? I don't know. I don't know. I would say the seven drinks in one night is probably worse because it probably highlights a different issue unless you do it like once every three years because you go to some party, you know. But I'm not sure that's the case with a lot of people, right? The one night, the one drink per night continuously, that might be a habit, a habit that you can mold over time, like I did. I used to drink wine every night, and then I switched to just beer on the weekend or wine on the weekend, then I switch to like one a weekend, then I switch to non-alcoholic, and I hardly ever drink now, right? And again, I'm not holding myself up as some paragon of this stuff. This has taken me years to even get to that point. And I still will occasionally have a drink. So that's the second thing is think about frequency over quantity. Just look at your patterns. The third is think about cumulative exposure because cancer risk is about lifetime exposure to all the different things that cause cancer, right? More years plus higher average consumption is going to equal greater risk. So even if you are having seven drinks in one night, but you do it every five years, my guess is your risk is minuscule close to zero from that. I don't know if drinking a whole bunch of drinks in one night and that's the only time you ever did it is the same as like smoking, you know, a pack of cigarettes one day and it's the only time you did that. I'm not really sure. Because I definitely have heard the idea that even one cigarette that you've ever smoked that can mutate your DNA and cause cancer. I don't know. Don't quote me on that. Um, fourth is that risk is multifactorial. Remember, alcohol is just one thing. But look, you control what you can control. So control the things that you feel have the biggest impact on your outcome and your results, your body composition, your hormones, your longevity, your health. Okay. Fifth, if you're strength training, alcohol has additional downsides. We've talked about this concept before. I did an episode about the fourth macro and how it affects fat loss and muscle. It impairs so many things that it really is a big negative in the world we inhabit here on wits and weights. Whether you're talking protein synthesis, sleep, it's you know, the empty calories basically that you get from it, your performance, your fats, visceral fat storage, belly fat. Anybody concerned about belly fat shouldn't be drinking too much alcohol, right? So if you care about those things, think about what you can control and why you're doing it. Because from a physique and health standpoint, less is always better all the way to zero. Zero is going to be the best in this case. And I won't say that about a lot of things. I'm never gonna say you have to have zero processed foods. You can actually have a decent amount of ultra-processed foods in your diet and have optimal health and live a long life. You can't have a certain amount of alcohol on your diet and hope to have an optimal life. That that there's a difference because one's one's a toxin, one's a poison that's foreign to your body. And that's alcohol, by the way. In case I wasn't clear about that. All right. So I'm not saying never to have a drink. I'm saying know what you're doing to your body when you do, and drink less than you think is moderate because we're all lying to ourselves about what moderate is. Let's be honest. There's a quote I saw in my notes, I think it was from the IARC, that said, risks start from the first drop. Okay, risks start from the first drop.

Nuance: Relative Vs Absolute Risk

Philip Pape 20:21

Not the full risk occurs on the first drop, but that there is this dose response cumulative effect where there is some risk once you start to drink at some level. So if you drink daily, could you shift to a few times a week? If a few times a week, could you shift to just special occasions? If you're doing just special occasions, could you have one instead of three? And so on and so forth. Every reduction is going to reduce your exposure to cancer. Every alcohol-free day is a day your body isn't dealing with damage to your DNA. And you do not owe anyone an explanation for not drinking, by the way, right? The social pressure around alcohol is truly bizarre. It is truly odd when you step back and think about it. We've normalized regular consumption of what's essentially a carcinogen. Okay. So if I didn't get my point across by now, I'm not sure I ever will. And at the same time, I'm saying the dose matters, the accumulation matters, the context of everything else you're doing matters. It all matters, guys. Think about the nuance. So here's what ties this together your body is constantly making repairs, right? It's repairing itself. When you lift, you create, let's say, micro damage that gets rebuilt stronger, so you get stronger, bigger, bigger muscles. Your liver is a great detoxifier. It's processing nutrients, it's filtering all the toxins that come through, including, yes, alcohol. Your immune system is gonna eliminate abnormal cells as best as it can, including precancerous cells. So your body's doing wonderful things to constantly clean itself up and avoid this, but they also require energy and recovery to do that. And alcohol goes against that, right? It's gonna force your body to prioritize detoxification. It is literally poison. And your liver and your immune system, everything else has to say, eh, we need to get rid of this first before we do anything else. That diverts resources from protein synthesis, from sleep quality, from you know, your inflammation is gonna go up and damage and DNA damage is going to accumulate. Again, accumulate over time, just like with smoking, right? Accumulates over time. The more you do it, the longer you do it, the more frequently you do it, the worse it is. So if you're training hard, if you're eating enough protein, if you're managing your sleep and stress, if you're being consistent, and then you're regularly introducing a substance that counteracts all that hard work while increasing disease risk, it's working against yourself. That is that is a factual statement. That is it. It's a factual statement. You still have a choice, but it's a factual statement. And so this buried stuff buried buried, that's how I used to say it. This the this buried study is important because it just highlights that we need to be in charge of our own lives

Practical Guide: Definitions And Patterns

Philip Pape 23:01

and the information we receive and seek out. And we have to be careful what we believe, but also understand there's information that we may believe that isn't even available to us, right? So it gets complicated, right? You don't need that study to make informed decisions. There's plenty of evidence. And every single one of you listening has more control over this than almost any other health factor, to be honest. Like it's it's quote unquote easy from that perspective. You can't control your genetics, you can't control your environmental exposures in general, right? In general, without big changes, but you can control whether you drink, how much, how often you drink, along with the other things you're controlling, like your training and how much protein you eat, et cetera. And that's really, really powerful. So go ahead and use that power. I want you to use that power. All right. I that I think that's all I want to say. Just remember, you have the agency, you decide what the trade-off, what trade-offs are worth it. I'm not gonna tell you what trade-offs to make. I just want to get to you to be informed. And information is power, as they say. All right. So if this episode gave you an interestingly different perspective, maybe a little different than most of my episodes, to be honest, but it taught you something about alcohol and health. All I ask is you text it to a friend. Obviously, don't text it to someone who's gonna be combative about this topic, but maybe someone has said, like, hey, have you heard about the issues with alcohol, or I'm trying to reduce my drinking, or you know, I'm trying to get healthier. Text it to a friend. Text it to somebody you love who is curious about this topic, and that's it. That's all I ask of you. I'd be grateful. Until next time, keep using your wits, lifting those weights, and remember that making informed decisions about what you put in your body is totally up to you, and that is powerful. This is Philip Pape, and you've been listening to Wits and Weights. I'll talk to you next time.