Wine and cancer. Shock! Horreur!
Posted by Martin Field on 11 May 2008 in WineLatest news reports suggest that drinking two glasses of wine a day can increase your risk of mouth cancer by up to 75 per cent. See, for example, Cancer drinking danger.
Hardly a day goes by without one of these scientific horror stories. And if it’s not a horror story then it’s wine as a miraculous cure-all.
It seems to me that if this latest scientific research about mouth cancer is accurate then there must be ample epedemiological evidence to support it.
Now I’m no scientist but if I wanted to find links between wine and cancer I would investigate populations where wine is and has been consumed in quantity for many years, even centuries. For example, in wine growing regions.
I have visited wineries in Europe, the US and Australia over a number of decades and met hundreds of wine makers, merchants, winery workers and the like – all of whom I assume consume more wine each day than members of the general population.
To my knowledge I have never met one with mouth cancer. Personal observation is hardly scientific analysis I know. But if the reported figures are correct I’d expect to have met any number of sufferers on my travels.
