• Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    Alcohol is a carcinogen. No two ways about it. There aren’t really “safe” levels for a toxin; it’s not a matter of what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, it’ll gradually and insidiously weaken you by ways of fatty liver disease and worse.

    • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Sunlight is also a carcinogen, but that doesn’t mean you always stay indoors.

      • iopq@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        No, of course not. You should apply sunscreen when outdoors

        • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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          12 days ago

          There’s no “safe” level of sunlight, even if you wear sunscreen.

          • Krudler@lemmy.world
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            12 days ago

            That is a highly myopic, frankly stupid, opinion that isn’t even yours - you’re just repeating things that you heard.

            The deleterious health effects from not getting sun exposure vastly outweigh the potential DNA damage from sun exposure.

          • ziltoid101@lemmy.world
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            11 days ago

            10 minutes of sun per day is typically less likely to give you cancer than 0 minutes. Vitamin D (and other compounds involved in the synthesis from cholesterol that you won’t get in supplements) upregulate DNA repair polymerases that protect against carcinogens. Of course after a few minutes the costs of UV exposure outweight this benefit though.

    • iglou@programming.dev
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      12 days ago

      There aren’t really “safe” levels for a toxin

      There is, actually. Everything is toxic if you take enough of it. The only difference between what is called “toxic” and is not called “toxic” is that what is called “toxic” has a very low threshold before it is toxic to us.

      Now I’m not here to defend alcohol, but that statement is simply wrong.

        • The_v@lemmy.world
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          12 days ago

          That was an absolute shit paper. Their methodolgy was horrible and their statistics were even worse. It’s seriously so flawed that I gave myself an migraine from eyerolling so hard.

        • iglou@programming.dev
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          12 days ago

          Everything has a threshold from a toxicology point of view.

          Absolutely. Every. Single. Substance.

          I haven’t read the article you linked, but it does not matter, as a drop is not an indivisible unit of alcohol. It could already be above the threshold.

          If your body accidentally absorbs a single molecule of ethanol, you’ll be just fine.

          • squaresinger@lemmy.world
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            11 days ago

            Good to know that you, random keyboard scientist, know so much more about this topic than the WHO. So much in fact that you don’t even have to check the source.

            Let’s form a religion around your wisdom. All hail iglou!

            • iglou@programming.dev
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              11 days ago

              Alright, I read your article. All it says it that there is no study determining a threshold. That’s your source?

              Meanwhile, here is the ECHA page for ethanol, the alcohol most present in alcoholic beverages and the only one “safe” for consumption. You will there find various toxicity thresholds established by studies, although none on humans. But unless you are willing to argue that humans don’t have thresholds for alcohol while mice, rats and monkeys do, that doesn’t make a difference to the point.

              No need to form a religion, it’s just documented science.

              Rather than hailing me, you could learn a bit about toxicology. Because the fact that everything has a threshold is pretty basic.