“As a cancer doctor and researcher, I am well aware of the staggering toll inflicted on the public health by tobacco products, which cause cancer, heart disease, stroke, emphysema and other medical problems,” said Acting Food & Drug Administration Commissioner Ned Sharpless, M.D. He added:
“While most people assume the public knows all they need to understand about the harms of cigarette smoking, there’s a surprising number of lesser-known risks that both youth and adult smokers and nonsmokers may simply not be aware of, such as bladder cancer, diabetes and conditions that can cause blindness.”
Sharpless made the comments as he announced a proposed rule mandating new health warnings with color images for cigarette packages and advertisements.
“With these new proposed cigarette health warnings, we have an enormous public health opportunity to fulfill our statutory mandate and increase the public’s understanding of the full scope of serious negative health consequences of cigarette smoking,” he added.
Substitute alcohol beverages for tobacco or cigarettes and Sharpless has expressed exactly the long-term dream of anti-alcohol advocates to position any alcohol consumption, not just excessive alcohol consumption, as unhealthy.
Just a little over a year ago, the Lancet, a British medical journal, published a study that concluded, “alcohol use, regardless of amount, leads to health loss across populations.” (Emphasis added.)
To be sure, the study acknowledged “some protective effects for ischaemic heart disease and diabetes among women,” but went on to say “these effects were offset when overall health risks were considered—especially because of the strong association between alcohol consumption and the risk of cancer, injuries, and communicable disease.”
The Lancet study went on to say “it is crucial for decision makers and government agencies to enact or maintain strong alcohol control policies today to prevent the potential for rising alcohol use in the future. Effective policies now could yield substantial population health benefits for years to come.”
Among the World Health Organization proposals it advocates: excise taxes on alcohol, controlling the physical availability of alcohol and the hours of sale, and controlling alcohol advertising.
Any of these policy actions, the study says, would contribute to reductions in population-level consumption—an important step toward decreasing the health loss associated with alcohol use.
“The widely held view of the health benefits of alcohol needs revising, particularly as improved methods and analyses continue to show how much alcohol use contributes to global death and disability, the study said, adding:
“Our results show that the safest level of drinking is none. This level is in conflict with most health guidelines, which espouse health benefits associated with consuming up to two drinks per day. Alcohol use contributes to health loss from many causes and exacts its toll across the lifespan, particularly among men. Policies that focus on reducing population-level consumption will be most effective in reducing the health loss from alcohol use.”
We don’t think it’s a stretch to anticipate anti-alcohol advocates urging the FDA and Congress to require similar warnings for alcohol.
The industry, of course, has argued that with heart attacks being the No. 1 killer of Americans, the demonstrated cardiovascular benefit of moderate alcohol consumption outweighs any risk from other diseases.
Confounding Studies
Almost all population studies are confounded. For instance, a study of cardiovascular mortality among Utah residents found that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints had 35% less mortality than expected from U.S. rates for ischemic heart disease, while non-Mormons weren’t significantly different from U.S. whites.
The LDS church proscribes the use of tobacco and alcohol. The study didn’t address alcohol, but did say the results “support the relationship between cigarette smoking and mortality from cardiovascular disease.”
But another study found that Utah residents who skipped meals about once a month were 40% less likely to be diagnosed with clogged arteries than those who did not regularly fast. Roughly 70% of Utah residents are LDS Church members, whose religion advises abstaining from food on the first Sunday of each month.
Still another study, by researchers at Loma Linda University, found that for deaths due to cardiovascular disease in individuals less than 75 years old, the rates for Seventh-Day Adventist men were 65% of expectation, and for Adventist women, 90%. Cancer deaths for Adventist men were 78% of expectations and for Adventist women, 94%.
The Seventh-Day Adventist Church urges its members to follow a vegetarian diet and to abstain from alcohol and tobacco. A 2014 study in the International Journal of Cardiology concluded that a vegetarian diet is potentially associated with reduced ischemic heart disease.
What Does It Mean?
So when you play dueling science, what do we know? A host of studies finds that moderate consumption of alcohol has a positive effect in reducing heart disease. But studies involving Mormons, who abstain from alcohol and tobacco, also show reduced deaths from heart disease. Since most studies show alcohol abstainers have higher risk of cardiovascular deaths than moderate consumers, is it the case that it’s not abstaining from alcohol that makes the difference for Mormons, but rather abstaining from tobacco?
But when it comes to long, healthy lives, Seventh-Day Adventists trump LDS Church members. Not only does the Adventist Church urge abstention from tobacco and alcohol, but also adhering to a vegetarian diet.
The interesting thing about a whole-food, plant-based diet is that it has been shown to not only prevent but also reverse heart disease, to halt the progression of multiple sclerosis, and to prevent cancer.
We are certain that anti-alcohol zealots will urge Congress and the FDA to adopt rules similar to what the FDA proposed today for tobacco to alcohol.
We think the evidence remains overwhelming that cigarettes (and tobacco in general) are the only consumer product ever conclusively proven to be deadly when used as intended. There is no reason to apply similar rules to alcohol, or to adopt the World Health Organization’s approach.
Anti-alcohol advocates would do better to urge adoption of a healthy eating pattern than to seek to ban alcohol. Our opinion.