“This book opened my eyes in so many ways about how alcohol really affects our body and mind. A must-read for anyone wanting to explore their true relationship with alcohol.”—Alison Canavan, wellness advocate and supermodel. … Get yours now
Legal threats scupper Canadian alcohol cancer warning trial
Legal threats have scuppered hopes for the resumption of a Canadian trial of labels warning that drinking alcohol increases the risk of cancer, putting a question mark over plans to inform consumers elsewhere.
Ireland and Australia are both considering labels warning that alcohol increases the risk of cancer, with Ireland’s lower house debating the move this week.
The UK’s Royal Society for Public Health proposed labels last month which include a warning that alcohol is proven to increase the risk of cancer (left). Alcohol producers quietly lowered their voluntary labelling standard last year.
The Canadian study was abruptly halted at the end of December after receiving a range of legal threats, including that it might be guilty of defamation and trademark infringement. Experts say those seeking to obstruct cancer labelling have a wide range of legal options.
The legal threats have not stopped the evaluation of labels not mentioning the increased cancer risk of drinking alcohol: one showing a standard drink size and another the low-risk drinking guidelines. Results are expected in June.
The trial is part of the second phase of the Northern Territories Alcohol Study led by researchers from Public Health Ontario and the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria.
Yukon’s 34,000 people have the highest alcohol sales per head in Canada. ■
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[review] Citizen Clem: A Biography of Attlee, by John Bew
Clement Attlee was a man whose life was shaped by world events dwarfing those of our own time, World Wars 1 and 2 and their aftermath, the Russian Revolution and the Great Depression. And, in his own quiet, methodical way, he also helped shaped them. Shy, privately-schooled, cricket-loving, he put himself into the public eye to fulfil a Victorian sense of patriotism and selfless public duty which seem foreign today. His mission all began by living and working in London’s hard up East End. He was a spitting image for Lenin, though he rejecting bolshevism in favour of the separate stream of British socialism. He was, with his homegrown creed, able to work effectively alongside the aristocratic and bombastic Winston Churchill in the national government of World War 2, only to trounce him with a radical plan to create the welfare state once it was over. And yet the two remained on good terms. His natural reticence and his role in unifying a fractious Labour party perhaps mean he is, as a man and as a politician, destined to remain frustratingly elusive. But this portrait of a life lived on the front line in tumultuous times, from being shot in the bum in the Mesopotamia campaign to facing the threat of the nuclear age, while providing universal healthcare and homes for heroes and starting the dismantling of the British Empire, is no less breathtaking for it. ■
Alcohol is not a human “brain cleaner”
Recent headlines saying alcohol drinking “cleans brains” should not persuade humans to drink more.
“It is by no means a green light for people to drink more alcohol,” says Dr Claire Walton, research manager at the UK’s Alzheimer’s Society, about a study on mice which has triggered coverage hinting otherwise.
It is a “big leap” to take a research finding for mice and apply it to people, she said. “There are just too many differences between mice and people to do this.” Drinking more than 14 UK units (140ml) of alcohol a week, meanwhile, definitely increases human alcohol-related dementia risk.
The study investigated the mouse’s brain waste-disposal system which might play a role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. “This is a relatively new area of research, where there is a lot still to be learned.”
Alcohol had a long history of use as a medicine, but it has since been found to be counterproductive in all cases and fraught with other risks. It is no longer put to any medical use other than as a sterilising fluid because of its ability to kill cells.
Dubious ideas that alcohol drinking can have health benefits can help support our decisions to drink, in what is known by health professionals as alcohol’s false “health halo”. ■