I've been told by multiple people in medicine that alcohol not only causes cancer, it might be more cancer causing than even cigarettes. I assumed this was common knowledge, but this research suggests there might not be strong correlations yet?

I think the problem with cancer is that things that cause it don't really "cause it", they increase the number of cells that die in a particular part of the body, thus increasing the likelihood of replication errors. But that threshold for errors is different from one person to another. some can drink and smoke until they're in their 100's because they either don't experience enough inflamation/cell-death or they do and their cells have a higher replication-error threshold. So it isn't a matter of chance or probability but genetics and what else the involved organs involved have been exposed to over the person's lifespan.

Obviously, alcohol is a toxin, it directly harms the body and inflames parts of it. So those parts that process it the most might age faster than the rest of the body and start exhibiting replication errors sooner as a result. Things like microplatics though, that I don't get, they're tiny but exactly are they inflaming or harming, what's the data there? But with alcohol, it's nice to have the correlation, but there is a clear path of causation right? Same with cigarettes. I literally felt my lungs hurt when i breathed with cigarettes and I've had many bad hangovers and situations where i was cramping so bad I almost went to the ER. the body already is letting us know these things are causing hardships on it.

But don't get me wrong, I'm just stating my understanding of how it works, I am neither in medicine nor well informed to make factual claims.

Alcohol is not perfect for health but quite amazing social lubricant for a healthy social life (more sex, friends and social life = longer lifespan!).

Civilizations that banned alcohol and drugs are typically violent and poor.

Mental health is important, and nothing is black and white. There is a magical number for risk/rewards at around 0.09%% AFIK nd not often than once per week. (around 2x less than 'recommended' amount in UK by goverment hehe)

SCIENCE! :)

"Results. A total of 62 studies were retained for analysis following title, abstract, and full text screening. Race/ethnicity (n = 46/62) and age (n = 42/62) were the most frequently mentioned individual risk factors. Across the 62 studies reviewed, alcohol consumption was consistently identified as a risk factor for several types of cancer, including breast (n = 23/62), colorectal (n = 13/62), and liver (n = 10/62), among others. Other alcohol-associated comorbidities reported include obesity (n = 8/62), alcoholic liver disease (n = 5/62), and diabetes (n = 4/62).

Conclusion. Alcohol intake, particularly at higher frequency or greater quantity, was consistently associated with elevated risk for multiple cancers, most notably colorectal, breast, and liver. Dose-response relationships were a common finding, underscoring that risk is not limited to heavy or chronic use."

drinking the piss of a microscopic organism causes cancer?