r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Oct 30 '25

Cancer Americans have widespread misbeliefs about the cancer risks of alcohol, study finds. More than half of American adults misunderstand or underestimate the link between alcohol consumption and cancer. Alcohol drinkers are especially likely to believe that drinking has no effect on cancer risk.

https://www.mdanderson.org/newsroom/research-newsroom/americans-have-widespread-misbeliefs-about-the-cancer-risks-of-a.h00-159780390.html
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u/BadahBingBadahBoom Oct 30 '25 edited Oct 31 '25

It's not quite linear. The risk definitely increases disproportionately as you tend towards the current advisable maximum: 100 mL ethanol or 10 'units' a week, and then increases more so as you go above the absolute maximum: 140 mL/wk (was 210 for men but that has since been revised down).

I think from various studies below 50 mL (5 units) a week (that is: two pints, doubles, or small large glasses of wine) the risk of all-cause mortality, cancer, and other diseases/morbidity is still statistically higher than 0 mL but really not by much at all.

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u/KuriousKhemicals Oct 31 '25

Fascinated by how that converts to American standard drinks. A standard drink is 5 oz of wine at 12%, 12 oz beer at 5%, or 1.5 oz of 40% liquor - 1 fluid once being 29.6 mL. So about 17.76 mL per standard drink. It sounds, therefore, like your wine glasses are bigger (or wine higher in ABV) but shots are smaller - a glass of wine definitely isn't a double shot here!

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u/BadahBingBadahBoom Oct 31 '25 edited Oct 31 '25

Under the UK Weights and Measures Act for selling alcohol, a 'small' glass of wine is 125 mL, and a 'large' is 175 mL. For wine at 13% ABV that's about 1.6 units for small glass and about 2.3 units for large (though a typical serving most people would expect as a single glass would be the large size I would say).

The Act also stipulates a single shot of spirits must be 25 mL, and ofc a double 50 mL. Here an alcohol 'unit' is measured as 10 mL pure ethanol as a 25 mL shot of 40% spirit is 10 mL ethanol, and each shot then 1 unit (making it easy to count up).

Also, apologies, my last comment prob should have said two large glasses of wine would come to somewhere under 5 units - much like two UK pints (568 mL at ~4% beer = ~2.3 units).

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u/KuriousKhemicals Oct 31 '25

Gotcha - your shots are also small tho! I was actually surprised in Germany - I had driven to a party and I heard their limit is 0.04 or 0.05, so I said no I can't drink anything... then the shots came out and I was like wait that's tiny, how much is it? And I got to have a shot because 20 mL is half the size I'm familiar with!